


After Midnight and Other Moments Outside Time

by Requiem



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Disabled Character, M/M, McDonald's, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spies & Secret Agents, this...was supposed to be a coffee shop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-10-05 13:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: Zach works nights at McDonald's. Andrew shows up in a hail of bullets during one of his shifts, and won't stop coming back. It's a real problem, and Zach's not just talking about the way the ASC seems to have taken an interest in him.





	1. 2AM in the Drive-Thru

At least once a week, without fail, someone tries to come in through the front door when the lobby is dark, and the door is locked and has a prominent sign up saying DRIVE-THRU ONLY. It's mostly drunks incapable of seeing straight let alone reading, so Zach ignores the rapid pounding on the door in favour of adding another cup to the tower that he and Dave are building on the counter.

"Want me to go out there and throw some water on whoever it is?" Dave asks.

"Nah, they'll get bored of waiting soon and leave."

Sure enough, the knocking stops, but before Zach can say, "See?" the front door explodes in a shower of glass.

He's ducking behind the counter and pulling Dave with him before his brain even registers the gunshots, then all at once, he's back on the front, crouched in ankle-deep mud with a gun heavy in his hands and the whistle of shells falling around him on his brothers in arms while he's helpless to go to their aid.

"Hey, snap out of it!" Dave shoves Zach's shoulder, and he abruptly returns to the present, though his ears still ring with the echoes of gunshots.

"What's going on out there?" Jeff whispers from the kitchen.

There's a clink of glass as several people—wearing heavy boots, at least one of them armed if not all—walk through the broken door and fan out through the lobby.

"There are fucking guys with guns shooting up the place, what do you think?" Dave hisses back.

"Somebody call the police," Zach says, patting down his pockets for his phone and realising he's left it on the counter.

"No, don't call the police," an unfamiliar voice says before a figure ducks around the wall that separates the counter from the kitchen and crouches down next to Zach. "Not yet, anyway."

"Who're you?"

"I'm the guy those guys after."

Zach doesn't get a good look at the man before he's moving closer to the counter, and all Zach can see of him are broad shoulders in a dark jacket, and neat V-shaped stripes shaved into the back of his head.

"How did you get in?"

"Had a friend pick the lock on the back door." The man ignores the indignant sound Dave makes to peek over the top of the counter. "C'mon, Niesha, hurry up," he mutters to himself.

"Who are these guys?" Zach asks. "And why are they after you?"

"It's a long story, but they'll be gone soon, don't worry." The man pulls something out of his pocket and casually tosses what turns out to be a smoke grenade over the counter. It lands on the other side with a thunk and a hiss, and the gunmen start backing up towards the door as the lobby fills with smoke.

"Why did you lead them here?" Zach asks, his heart still hammering in his chest. This was supposed to be, well, not a stress-free job, but at least one where getting shot at wasn't part of the job description.

"In my defence, I thought the place was closed."

"We're open twenty-four hours."

"I can see that now, but the light on your sign outside is broken."

So that's why Zach's last few shifts have been so quiet.

An explosion from the carpark rocks the building, and the cup tower on the counter tumbles down onto them. As the gunmen yell and run outside, the man nimbly springs to his feet. "That's my cue. Sorry about the mess." He winks at Zach, then he's gone.

There's a stunned silence behind the counter for a few seconds—to a backdrop of muffled shouting, gunshots, and a screech of tires as a car speeds away—before Zach hears the sound of a phone ringing. It's Jeff, having finally followed Zach's instruction to call the police. While he gives the dispatcher the address of the store and describes what had just happened, Zach pulls his own phone off the counter and dials his boss Eliza.

"Have you called the police?" is the first thing she says after picking up. The only other time Zach's called her at this hour is when they'd had an angry customer in the drive-thru threatening a literal drive through after Zach had told him he couldn't have a milkshake because the ice cream machine was being cleaned.

"Yeah, Jeff's on it." Zach's throat feels dry and his hands are shaking so hard he nearly drops his phone, but he somehow manages to keep it together long enough to tell Eliza what happened.

She arrives at the store just minutes after the police, takes one look at Zach, and drives him home once he's finished giving his statement since he's clearly in no condition to be riding his motorcycle.

"If you never want to come back, I'll understand," she says when they're outside his apartment building. "We'll be closed for a few weeks to fix the place up, and after that…I'll leave it up to you."

It's a nice thought, but Zach needs this job; less for the money, and more for something to fill his wakeful nights. He only sleeps in the daytime now, with the curtains thrown open and the sun streaming in so he'll remember where he is when he wakes up. The thought of having to spend the next few weeks' worth of nights alone fills him with dread more than anything else.

"I'll let you know," he says.

-

The store is open in two weeks, needing only a new set of front doors—and better locks on the back one—and a few tiles and the front panel of the counter replaced to get rid of the bullet holes. The carpark is another matter, with the asphalt blown to pieces where a car bomb had gone off, but that area gets cordoned off, and business continues as usual.

Zach is back at work the night it reopens, having spent the last two weeks mindlessly watching TV all night with every light in his apartment turned on, then passing out on the couch the moment the sun rises. Dave and Jeff are off for another week—Zach gets saddled with two newbies who whisper amongst themselves when they think he's out of earshot—but they come back, and things slowly return to normal.

-

It's just past two in the morning, and the man in the ostentatious red convertible that pulls up to the window and smiles at Zach like he's in on a secret only the two of them share is oddly familiar.

"Hey there…" the man's eyes drift to Zach's nametag, "Zach. I see you guys fixed up the place. And your sign, too."

Zach narrows his eyes; he recognises the voice now that he's not hearing it through the tinny drive-thru speakers. "We're not going to have to renovate again, are we? Maybe I'll suggest the owner put in bulletproof glass this time."

The man laughs. "Just a coffee this time. No guns and no explosives, promise."

Zach squints at the order he'd mindlessly punched into the screen in front of him. "A large hazelnut latte with five shots of espresso and ten sugars?"

"And extra hot, please, I've got a long drive ahead of me."

"That'll be six forty," Zach says so he won't be tempted to pass judgement on the man's choice of drink. Not out loud, at least.

The man pays with a handful of coins—exact change, thank Shadow, as Zach is already nearing the end of his patience after just this thirty-second exchange—and flashes Zach a winning smile before pulling up to the next window.

Dave's off sick tonight and Jeff's busy fixing one of the toasters morning shift keeps complaining about, so it's down to Zach to make the sugary, over-caffeinated monstrosity.

"I'm Andrew, by the way," the man says when Zach hands him the cup. If their positions were reversed, Zach has no doubt he’d be receiving a cup with a phone number scribbled on the side.

"Just take the coffee and don’t come back."

-

Andrew, of course, ignores him, and returns less than a week later in a beat-up sedan of indeterminable colour due to the dirt caked onto the body. He orders the same unholy concoction he'd had before, only this time in caramel, and has six forty in coins ready when he pulls up to the window.

"Look, I didn't exactly make the best first impression, or second, maybe, but I just wanted to say that I really am sorry about what happened. You know, with the shooting."

"And the bomb," Zach adds.

"Oh yeah, and the bomb."

Andrew does sound genuinely apologetic, but there's no ignoring the fact that the place had been shot up while Zach had been inside, and Andrew had been the one to bring the gunmen here.

"The police would love to talk to you about that," Zach says.

"Are they here now?" The look on Andrew's face says he damn well knows Zach hasn't called them yet.

"They'll be my first call if you ever show your face here again. Seriously, don't come back."

"Alright, if that's what you want."

Zach means it, he really does, but after Andrew leaves, he can't help but wonder how long it'll be before someone looks at him like they really see him again.

-

It's three o'clock on a Tuesday morning, and the drive-thru has been quiet for two hours, their last customer being a half-naked man on a bicycle who'd either been high or drunk or both and had spent a good twenty minutes yelling at the drive-thru speakers, not realising bicycles didn't activate the pressure plate in the floor. Zach had watched him through the cameras for lack of anything better to do, and the man had eventually ridden off in a huff, precariously zig-zagging down the drive-thru and nearly running headlong into the bush at the end.

The woman currently on the other end of the intercom sounds like a perfectly normal person though, even if she does take a long time to decide on twenty-four nuggets with one of each kind of sauce.

"Is that all for today?" Zach asks.

There's a long pause. "Ah, to hell with it, I'll also get a large hazelnut latte with five shots of espresso and ten sugars. He'll want it if he wakes up. When he wakes up."

Three o'clock is always a surreal time of the morning for Zach, and he manages to get the order half keyed in before he recognises it and stops.

"And uh, serviettes," the woman is saying. "A lot of serviettes. Do you have a first aid kit?"

A nondescript black car pulls up to the window, a dark-haired woman in the driver's seat and someone slumped over in the passenger's seat.

"Is that…" Zach leans forward for a better look. "Is he…"

"Zach, right?" the woman says. "I'll pull around the front. Bring the first aid kit." She drives off without paying.

Dave raises an eyebrow when Zach says he's going to bring the order out to the carpark, but doesn't say anything, probably hoping Zach will die out there and he'll be promoted to night shift manager. Zach swipes the first aid kit from its spot on the shelf when Dave turns his back.

The driver's seat is empty when Zach reaches the car that's been parked in the corner of the carpark where the street light hadn't been replaced after the car bomb those many weeks ago. The door on the passenger's side is open, and the woman is half-kneeling, half-crouching there as she reaches into the car.

"I brought the first aid kit," Zach says.

"Gauze," the woman says without turning around.

Zach sets the coffee and the bag of nuggets on the ground and roots through the first aid kit, tearing open the largest packet of gauze he can find. Then another, and another, until the woman is satisfied and asks Zach to pass her a roll of bandages that she wraps around the blood-soaked dressings on Andrew's left shoulder.

"That should hold for now," she says, getting to her feet and futilely trying to push the hair out of her eyes with her elbow. "Grab the bottle of water in the boot, would you? I need to wash my hands."

Along with the bottle of water, Zach also sees a coil of rope, several rolls of heavy-duty duct tape, and a long rectangular case about the same size as a rifle. He quickly retrieves the bottle and shuts the door.

The woman rinses the blood off her hands in the bushes next to the car, then grabs the coffee and nuggets and gets into the driver's seat while Zach is trying to decide whether it's worth attempting to remind her that she still hasn't paid for the order after what he'd seen in the boot.

Then, there's a groan from the passenger's seat that Zach can hear through the open window as Andrew wakes up. "Niesha?" he mumbles. "Where are we?"

"At your favourite McDonald's," Niesha tells him as she starts the car.

"Is that for me?" Andrew grabs the coffee from the cupholder and downs about half of it in one gulp, which is impressive considering that it's got to still be hot, and that he hasn't moved from his awkwardly slumped-over position. "I'm not paying you back."

"Oh, speaking of…" Niesha reaches into her pocket and comes up with a wad of bills, thrusting a fifty-dollar note at Zach. "Keep the change." She rolls up the window and drives off.

-

Zach tries to forget about everything he'd seen since Andrew seems to be involved in something that includes a lot of getting shot at and Zach's had enough of that for a lifetime, but it's hard when the AS-freaking-C turn up the next day right before his shift is scheduled to end.

"Colonel Viktor Watcher, ASC," says the man in the long coat at the head of the group, flashing his badge at Zach while five people dressed from head to toe in black and with their faces covered spread out through the store. There are about half a dozen customers having breakfast, and though they all stop eating to stare, no one dares get their phone out to film the unusual intrusion on their meal. "We need to conduct a search of the premises. Are you the manager?"

"Yes, the night shift manager," Zach says. "My boss should be in soon though, if you'd rather speak with her."

Everyone in Abundance grows up with a healthy dose of fear of the ASC, the intelligence agency said to be keeping their eyes on the citizens at all time. During his time in the army, Zach had learned that rumours about the ASC shipping off anti-government protestors to 're-education camps' were not entirely baseless, and he's been even more wary of them since then.

"Were you working yesterday morning between the hours of one and four?" Colonel Watcher is staring intently at Zach like he already knows all of Zach's secrets, which may very well be true.

"Yes."

"Then you're just the man I'm after. Let's talk."

Zach takes Colonel Watcher out the back door where they'll have some semblance of privacy, but Zach won't be trapped in the same room as him. The colonel asks a few leading questions about the Zach's shift was like the previous night, then finally gets around to asking about what customers had come through.

"Sure, there was a naked guy on a bicycle. Well, half naked, I guess, but I don't think it should count if the shorts only cover—"

"Anyone in a car?" Colonel Watcher interrupts him.

"Between one and four yesterday morning?"

"…Yes."

"Yeah, we had a customer. They ordered…twenty-four nuggets and a coffee."

"And what did this person look like?"

Had the ASC come knocking just two days before, Zach might have told the colonel everything, but right now, all he can see in his mind is Andrew, wounded and unable to fight back as the ASC drag him off to one of their secret prisons, knowing Zach had been the one to tip them off. Zach is a patriot, but the ASC are no friends of his or of Abundance's, and the only crime he's certain Andrew has committed is breaking and entering.

"It was dark and they were in a car. And honestly? The moment customers leave, I forget all about them."

Colonel Watcher's lips thin. "Let's start with the basics: was this person a man or a woman?"

-

Zach thinks Andrew probably won't be back again, not with the ASC asking around about him and Zach's threat to call the police, but he proves Zach wrong by returning nearly two months later.

"I know you said not to come back, but I just wanted to say thanks for the help," Andrew says before Zach's even got the window all the way open.

He'd recognised Andrew's coffee order through the headset, had briefly entertained the idea of telling him to back the fuck up out of the drive-thru, but the thought had gone as quickly as it had come, and now, here they are again.

"How's the shoulder?" Zach asks.

"Still a little sore, but I've had worse." Andrew takes off his left glove and waves at Zach, the fluorescent overhead lights glinting off the metal of his fingers. "Might not have worked out so well if you hadn't been there to help, though."

"The ASC came by afterwards asking about you."

"Really?" Andrew looks interested, but not surprised.

"Colonel Watcher came here himself."

"_Really?_" Zach thinks Andrew might ask for more details, like what Zach had told the ASC, but he only reaches into the cupholder and digs out a handful of coins. "Six forty, right?"

Dave's here tonight, and he makes Andrew's coffee while Zach's busy counting the coins. Zach's surprised to find himself disappointed that he doesn't get to spend those few extra seconds in Andrew's company; Jeff's permanently chipper mood gets on his nerves sometimes, and Dave fluctuates wildly between barely able to tolerate his presence to open disdain.

"Is it just me, or did that guy in the drive-thru look an awful lot like the guy who broke in here the night the place got shot up?" Dave asks, coming back to where Zach's sorting the coins into the till.

"Uh, I don't know," he says, pretending to be absorbed in his task. "I didn't get a good look. How do you remember what that guy looks like, anyway?”

“Dunno, guess he’s just got one of those faces.”

He’s certainly got _something_, Zach thinks to himself.

-

He doesn't see Andrew for another few weeks until he returns with an order large enough to feed a small army, saving his signature coffee for the end, which only alleviates Zach's annoyance a little when he realises who it is.

Andrew pays with a stack of small bills this time, hiding a slip of paper with a phone number between them that Zach considers for a moment before slipping into his shirt pocket. Andrew's smirking when Zach gives him his change, and for some reason has to close his entire hand around Zach’s to take the coins. Zach doesn't say anything, though, and Andrew's smirk only gets wider.

Zach rouses Dave from his nap, and they get to work on the order of twenty cheeseburgers, ten quarter pounders in large meals, a hundred and twenty nuggets, and of course, the coffee.

"Who the hell's having a party at this hour?" Dave grumbles as he drops 4:1s onto the grill.

"It's only twelve thirty," Zach says, like that makes it anymore reasonable.

Zach drops nuggets into the vat, then gets the drinks ready while the food is cooking, making Andrew's coffee first and passing it to him before Dave catches a glimpse of the order and recalls making it a few weeks ago. Zach doesn't trust him to keep quiet about it if the ASC comes knocking again, though he's not entirely sure why he's doing it himself when he's about eighty percent certain Andrew's involved in than less-than-legal business.

"Having a party?" Zach asks as he passes the first of three trays of cokes through the window.

"Business meeting," Andrew cheerfully informs him.

While Zach assembles the burgers, he tries to come up with a subtle way of prying more information from Andrew about what he does, but there's a reason Zach was infantry and not intelligence during his time in the army—he's always been better with his hands than his head, something that's become even more true after the incident that had gotten him discharged.

"Have a nice night," is all he can think of to say.

"You too." Andrew winks at him before driving off.

-

Zach almost forgets to take the slip of paper from his pocket before putting his shirt in the wash, and slams the stop button in a panic as the drum begins to fill with water. The only other occupant of the communal laundry room—an elderly woman reading a magazine as she sits in front of a dryer waiting for the cycle to finish—glares at him for abusing the equipment or disturbing the peace or whatever her problem is, but Zach ignores her in favour of carefully extracting the paper before starting the machine again.

There are only a handful of numbers on Zach's phone, all of them identified by a single letter. 'A' is already taken by Amelia, a specialist in the engineering corps who's like a younger sister to Zach and therefore takes priority over a near-stranger from the drive-thru, so he puts Andrew under 'M' for McDonald's Guy.

Zach's thumb hovers over the call button—it's nearly ten o'clock; surely Andrew would be awake by now—before he decides on a simple text that says, _Hey it's Zach_.

_Hey_, Andrew replies not ten seconds later.

_Didn't think I'd hear from you so soon_, says a second text.

_What're you up to?_ says the third.

_Laundry_, Zach replies after failing to come up with something more embellished.

_Sounds riveting _

_Wish I was there ;)_

Zach doesn't even know what to say to that._ How was your meeting?_ he asks instead.

_Fine_

_Will be in town for a while_

_Late nights_

_People to feed_

_Might be seeing a lot of you ;)_

_You know where I'll be_, Zach writes once Andrew's stopped sending texts for long enough that he's probably done.

True to his word, Andrew comes by three more times over the next week between eleven and one, though he never orders as much food again as he had the first time. Zach doesn't talk to him nearly as much as he'd like in case Dave takes notice, but he does manage to learn that Andrew had eaten Italian and Japanese the other nights.

It doesn't mean much by itself, but Zach knows there's a motel near the Argyre exit that's close to restaurants of those exact cuisines. A motel that no self-respecting business would dare put its employees up in, further cementing Zach's belief that Andrew's involved in something the ASC would love to hear about. The smart thing to do would be to turn him in, but Andrew keeps coming back, and Zach keeps his mouth shut.

-

Andrew comes by at five o'clock one morning and orders "as many shots of espresso as you can fit in one cup, just as much sugar, and a splash of milk, extra hot". He's never come by this late before and doesn't sound like his usual self, so Zach doesn't even know it's him until the pickup truck he's driving slowly rolls up to the window. He's frowning at his phone and only makes a small noise of acknowledgement when Zach greets him.

"You know that's illegal, right?" Zach says.

"You gonna tell on me?" Andrew finally looks up and grins at Zach, though it's clear his heart isn't in it. He's got dark circles under his eyes, and his flyaway hair is almost neat, like he hasn't had the time to style it into its usual careful disarray.

"Is something wrong?"

Andrew gives up all pretence of trying to be cheerful. "Don't know yet, I'm waiting to see. How much do I owe you today?"

"Six dollars."

Andrew actually pays with a five and a one like a normal person this time, and before he drives to the next window, he passes Zach a piece of paper. "My new number, in case the old one stops working."

Zach's dying to ask why his old number would just _stop working_, but Andrew's clearly not in the mood for idle chit-chat tonight, so Zach just nods and carefully tucks the paper into his wallet where there's no risk of it going through the wash.

Dave's elbow-deep in grill cleaning, so Zach makes the coffee, squeezing in a few more espresso shots than the till had let him enter since Andrew looks like he could use all the caffeine he can get.

"Be careful," Zach blurts out as Andrew sets the cup down and starts to roll his window up.

Andrew stops and locks eyes with Zach. "Don't worry, I can take care of myself."

Neither of them look away for several seconds.

"Coffee's hot," Zach says when things are starting to get just a little too intimate for comfort.

Andrew laughs, short-lived but genuine, and the rising tension is broken. "Can the cameras see us?"

"Yeah."

"Too bad." Andrew blows Zach a kiss from the safety of the truck and drives off before Zach can react.

-

On the news recap that's playing on one of the TVs in the store when Zach starts his shift that evening, he sees that the ASC has been conducting raids across Ophir all day.

_The intelligence agency has been working closely with local police to crack down on a group of anti-government extremists who are said to be armed and dangerous_, the reporter says. _Residents have been warned to be on the lookout for any suspicious persons in their neighbourhood, and to be aware that traffic may be disrupted as a result of the operations. The raids are expected to continue into the night and the following day._

Is this what had Andrew so preoccupied yesterday morning? If the ASC has finally caught up to him or run him out of town for good, that may have been the last time Zach got to see him. There's still the phone number in his wallet that he puts a hand to like it's a lifeline, but there'll be no more outrageous coffee orders at two in the morning, no more stolen cars and shameless flirting in the drive-thru while Zach takes one step forward and two steps back over the line of reciprocity.

Heedless of the growing emptiness inside Zach he'd thought he'd gotten used to, the night wears on, going by mostly uneventfully except for a busload of half-asleep travellers that come and are gone before midnight. Then, it's just the usual monotony of cleaning and stocking until it’s time to hand over to the morning shift.

The reminder Zach had set on his phone to restock his own pantry goes off as he's leaving, and he takes a detour to the grocery store on his way home. He picks up eggs, bread, instant coffee, two-minute noodles, half a dozen apples, and a packet of yesterday's muffins that are on sale, just for something different.

He drives home a little slower and more carefully than usual as a concession to the precious cargo in the back, but all that gets thrown out the window when he sees the ASC van parked outside his building, and slams on the brakes.

There’s no one in the immediate vicinity and the agents in the van can't see him from this angle, so Zach edges his bike forward to get a closer look.

There are definitely ASC agents inside the building, more than one van full, and the chances of them being in there to look for Zach are just too high for him to ignore. He gets out his phone and calls Andrew.

The automated message tells Zach the number has been disconnected, but when he tries the number on the paper in his wallet, Andrew picks up on the third ring.

“Zach, buddy, as much as I'd love to talk, I'm a little busy right now." Andrew sounds out of breath, and Zach thinks he can hear the crunch of gravel in the background.

"Are you still in town?"

"I'm going to have to pass on answering that."

"Because there are ASC in my apartment building."

Andrew stops running, and for a few seconds, all Zach can hear is him breathing heavily.

"Where are you?" Andrew finally asks.

"Outside, around the corner."

"You in a car?"

"Motorcycle."

"Even better. Meet me at the address I'll text to you. Try not to be followed."

The address Andrew sends Zach is in a district well known to him. Before he'd joined up with the army, Zach had lived in the slums that had once been the old trade district, until more of the city had been carved into the mountain and the middle class had been able to move their business out of the scorching sun and into the cool darkness of the Exchange.

Word is, the slums are still run by the gangs, and Zach hasn't found cause to return there in nearly ten years. It doesn't bring back many happy memories, but if he turns himself in, the ASC are bound to discover he's been hiding information from them, and the thought of being disappeared into one of their re-education camps is even less appealing than going back to his childhood haunts.

Zach turns his bike around.


	2. 12PM in the Desert

The address takes Zach to a rundown house next to the train tracks that looks like it hasn't been lived in for years. There's no one in sight, and Zach is about to call Andrew again when he bursts through the bushes by the side of the house, and throws himself onto the back of Zach's bike.

"Doesn't look like you were followed, but we'd better get out of here as quickly as we can."

"Where are we going?" Zach has to concentrate extra hard just to even ask, given that Andrew's pressed right up against his back with his arms around Zach's waist.

"Do they still tell stories about Noctis?"

"The sovereign city in the desert? Isn't that a myth?"

"So the stories would have you believe. But I promise you, it's very much real, and we'll be safe from the ASC there. Take the Tharsis exit."

They stop at the last service station before they're in the desert proper to buy water and completely fill up the tank, and Andrew also makes a strong suggestion that Zach get his hands on as much cash as he can, since he might find his bank account inaccessible after the ASC have had their way with it.

Not for the first time today, or even in the last ten minutes, Zach wonders if he's made the right choice, running from the law and the small life he's built here on the word of someone he barely knows. Then again, his old captain and mentor, Sean, has always told him that in times of trouble, he should never be afraid to do what's necessary to survive.

Well. This is a time of trouble, and he's surviving.

Andrew's waiting by the bike with a helmet in his hands by the time Zach gets back.

"Where did you get that?"

Andrew nods at the other motorcycle parked by the side of the store where the toilets are located. "Passenger helmet, so I doubt he'll notice until we're long gone. Still, best not to linger." He motions for Zach to mount first, then settles in behind him, warm and close in a way no one's been for over a year. "Let's go," Andrew says, resting his chin on Zach's shoulder. "Noctis awaits."

-

They're three hours out of Ophir, speeding down the dirt road through the desert as fast as Zach dares to push his bike, when he finally has to concede to the triple combination of hunger, thirst, and fatigue that have been plaguing him since an hour into the trip.

"I gotta stop or I'm gonna run us off the road," he says, slowing down so he can talk to Andrew. They've also got maybe another half hour's worth of fuel left in the tank, but Zach doesn't even want to consider what they'll do if they're stranded in the desert in the middle of the day.

"If you can last another ten minutes, we've got a refuel station coming up on the left," Andrew says. "Hope it's not empty."

The refuel station is a single pump and stopping bay by the side of the road, the parts of it not caked in sand bleached white by the sun. Someone's been there not long before them, as the sand hasn't yet settled on the small screen that's the only clean part of the pump.

Zach drinks some water and stretches his legs while Andrew carefully selects a card from the stack in one of his many pockets and uses it to pay for fuel before filling up the bike.

"We can't stay here, but if we continue for another hour to an area that's not as flat, we can get off the road and downhill a bit so we can't be seen from the road," Andrew says. "I can drive, if you're tired."

"Go ahead," Zach says through a yawn. It's not even ten o'clock yet, but now that the effects of the adrenaline rush from narrowly escaping capture have faded away, staying awake is proving to be difficult.

He drops off to sleep almost as soon as Andrew starts up the bike, and wakes up when the noise of the engine cuts off what feels like just minutes later even though his watch tells him it's been an hour.

"Sorry to wake you, but I'm going to need you to walk the bike while I take care of the tracks," Andrew says over his shoulder. "Just down there where there's some scrub cover should do."

Zach peels himself off Andrew's back—the sun is almost directly above them now, bright and scorching hot, and they're both covered in sweat and sand and how had Zach ever thought this was a good idea—and takes hold of the handlebar, using it to guide the bike down the gentle slope towards the scraggly bushes Andrew had pointed out.

The effort of pushing the bike serves the dual purpose of waking Zach up and making him aware of just how hungry he is. It's a good thing he'd stopped for groceries, he thinks, since if he hadn't, he'd likely be in ASC custody by now, and he wouldn't have these chocolate chip muffins that are slightly crushed but still taste good.

"Got one of those for me?" Andrew's managed to sneak up on Zach, which isn't a good idea these days, but the mild scare is forgiven when he pulls something out of his pocket and shakes it out into a full tarp in desert camo, pulling it over the bike and leaving an overhang to provide them with some relief from the sun.

"Help yourself," Zach says. "There's enough food to last us maybe two days, but we'll need to find a way to get water." The bottled water they'd bought at the service station is already half gone.

"I know a place." Andrew seems unperturbed by their situation, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the handlebar before dropping to the ground next to Zach. He's wearing a t-shirt underneath, which allows Zach to see that his prosthetic goes almost all the way to the shoulder, an exposed length of metal and wire that creaks and whirrs as he moves it.

"Doesn't the sand get into your arm?" Zach asks.

"Yeah, but no matter how well I seal the joints and seams, sand always gets in, and it's easier to clean when everything's exposed like this. Wearing something with sleeves helps a little, but I'm going to cook in this heat if I keep that jacket on any longer."

Zach's taken off his jacket too, and he realises he's still wearing his uniform underneath, with its faint, ever-present smell of fries and grease no matter how many times it goes through the wash. It also reminds him of something.

"What are you doing?" Andrew says, his left hand clamping down on top of Zach's.

Zach's phone is in his hand, but he hasn't even managed to unlock it yet. "I was going to call my boss and let her know I won't be able to come in for a while."

"No. Absolutely not. She'll probably find out when the ASC interrogate her about where you've gone, anyway."

"Oh, Shadow." Zach hadn't even stopped to think how his departure would affect the people in his life. "Will she be okay? What about Dave and Jeff? Maybe I should have just turned myself in."

"Hey, none of that now." Andrew's death grip eases up, and he rubs the back of Zach's hand in what's probably meant to be a soothing manner, except his fingers are digging in quite painfully. "If it helps, I'm almost certain it was one of your coworkers who turned you in."

"It doesn't really, no." Zach's not overly attached to them, but he can't blame them for not wanting to go up against the ASC.

"Yeah, guess not."

Things fall silent between them for a while, and Zach's almost dozed off when Andrew curses and shakes him awake. Zach's immediately alert, listening for anyone approaching them since visibility is limited, but Andrew only waves him back down and apologises.

"I can't believe I've only thought of this now, but if your boss and your coworkers have your number, the ASC will also have it by now, and they have ways of tracking a phone without making a call now," Andrew says. "And if they have access to your phone records, they'll have my number too, so we'd better get rid of them both. Really wish I'd thought to buy another backup before we'd left."

Andrew reluctantly lets Zach write down the numbers of his contacts first, on the condition that Zach doesn't try to get in touch with them until this all blows over, then he leaves on foot with Zach's phone and his own.

Despite how tired he feels, Zach can't rest easy in the ensuing silence until Andrew returns over an hour later, whereupon he immediately starts taking down the tarp and donning his jacket again.

"We need to be on the move." Andrew releases the kickstand on the bike and starts pushing it back towards the road.

"It's almost noon." Zach scrambles to his feet, his limbs feeling heavy and sluggish, and for a moment, the world seems to be spinning before it steadies itself.

"Right, which means they won't be expecting us to be on the move, not when our phones tell them otherwise, which could buy us back the few hours we'd lost travelling with tracking devices in our pockets. They'll already know we're out in the desert, which is a shame, but it's still a lot of ground for them to cover, especially once we cross the border."

The edge of Abundance's claim on the desert is another two or three hours away, and Zach's not looking forward to travelling during the hottest hours of the day, but he can't deny there's a sense of urgency behind this lunacy. "You'll have to drive," he says. "You're not tired, are you?"

"I can at least get us over the border. You should get what sleep you can in case we have to trade off."

-

Zach dreams of driving, or more accurately, sitting in the back of a truck with his squadmates as they're shuttled off to another battlefield. It's late afternoon, judging by the dark orange light that filters in through the gaps in the canvas, and the ten of them are sitting in companionable silence. Zach's sandwiched between Sean and Melvin, opposite Connor and Ian who are falling asleep on each other. The warmth and the rocking motion of the truck soon has Zach feeling sleepy too, and his head slowly sinks onto Sean's shoulder.

Zach's barely closed his eyes when several explosions go off outside in rapid succession, and the driver slams on the brakes. Inertia throws everyone in the back into each other, but they're the army's most elite squad for a reason, and they're on their feet with weapons at the ready by the time the driver bangs on the divider and yells at them to get out.

They've come to a stop outside a small outpost that's almost completely on fire, and Zach can see the silhouettes of civilians fleeing from what looks like Auroran soldiers.

"We can't continue until the road is clear, and there aren't any other units deployed close by, so we're going in," Ian says. "Take out the hostiles first, then we'll work on putting out the fires."

They split into two sections led by Ian and Sean, Zach going with the latter into the mine which is probably what the Aurorans are really after. Even over the turning of the gears as they pull the lift up from the depths of the mine, Zach can hear shouting and sporadic gunshots coming from the tunnels below.

The Aurorans have corralled most of the miners in a large cavern deep in the tunnels, and they're certainly not expecting any company, as it's easy for the Technomancers to sneak up from behind and overpower them. While Sean questions their leader, Zach and the others secure the perimeter and check on the miners.

They're getting ready to return to the surface when there's an explosion that makes the whole mine shake despite sounding like it's come from far away, and there are a series of loud cracking sounds before the whole place goes eerily quiet in very much a calm-before-the-storm way.

"Everybody back to the lift," Sean orders. "Now."

They bring the Aurorans too, because being the enemy doesn't mean they should be left behind to die, but they have to wait for the second trip up the lift when it's discovered it can't fit everyone at once. Zach stays with Sean to keep an eye on the Aurorans, and they all keep a wary eye on the supports that creak and groan with the strain of holding up the weakening bedrock.

The rumbling from within the mine continues to get louder, and fist-sized chunks of rock start falling off the walls and ceiling. Even the Aurorans are keeping perfectly still, as if one wrong move will bring the whole place crashing down on them.

The lift reaches the top of the shaft and the gears quiet for a moment, which is how they're able to hear the panicked shouting coming from one of the tunnels.

"One of yours?" Sean asks the Aurorans.

They look amongst themselves and shake their heads.

"I'll go take a look," Zach offers.

Sean looks like he's about to argue, but then he nods. "Stay alert, the tunnels could collapse at any moment."

Part of one already has, and Zach follows the shouting to a pile of rubble that he learns one person is trapped underneath while two more are stuck in the tunnel behind it.

"I'm going to get help!" Zach shouts through a small gap where the sound is the clearest. "Stay calm, everything's going to be okay!"

He's not quite sure what he and Sean and a bunch of Aurorans are going to be able to do, but all the same, he takes off at a run down the tunnel. He doesn't get very far before there's an ear-splitting crack that seems to come from all around him, and the ground falls away before everything goes black.

-

He wakes up on the back of a motorcycle—his motorcycle—with his arms around the person in front of him—Andrew, he recalls—and the midday sun mercilessly beating down as they speed across the Tharsis away from Ophir and the ASC. The browns and oranges of the desert streak by and blur together, making this feel more like a dream than the one he'd just had.

Andrew's got a hand on Zach's arm—the left one, steady and unyielding—to hold him in place, and he's got his head turned slightly to the side like he's trying to talk to Zach, but Zach can't hear anything over the ringing silence in his ears, not even the whistle of the wind rushing by.

Noon in the desert is nothing at all like being trapped in a mine, except maybe for the stifling heat that's barely tempered by the speed they're travelling at, but Zach can't bring himself to close his eyes again. He lays forward against Andrew's back like he's going back to sleep though, and rests his head on Andrew's shoulder.

Andrew doesn't take his hand off Zach's arm, and they stay like that until they pass a weathered sign on the side of the road that unceremoniously informs them they've left Abundance.

Andrew stops the bike at the refuel station just beyond the sign, gently prying Zach's arms off his waist and apologising for having to wake him up, then they continue for another hour before Andrew steers them off the road towards a grove of short, bent-over trees that are hiding a small spring.

"We can stay here for the rest of the afternoon," Andrew says, putting up the tarp to hide the bike and provide better shade than offered by the sparse needled leaves. "You good to take first watch?"

"Yeah, I can keep watch." Zach hadn't gotten as much sleep as he would have liked, but he has little choice since Andrew's probably running on just as little sleep by now.

Andrew curls up under the tarp using his jacket as a pillow while Zach sits amongst the twisted trees with his eyes toward the road. He can't see it from here, but he can hear the occasional rumble of a truck speeding past, and the quiet, even rarer rush of wind as cars and motorcycles dart in and out of this segment of the highway, here and gone in fractions of a second.

-

Andrew wakes up exactly two and a half hours later, and sticks his head through the branches to ask if Zach wants eggs for lunch.

Zach narrows his eyes. "Are you hiding a pan in your pockets? Because I'm not eating raw eggs."

Andrew holds up a lighter and a square of aluminium foil.

The army had taught Zach survival skills, but they'd been based on the assumption he would have at least one full kit between his squadmates to work with. Andrew, on the other hand, seems to travel with everything he needs crammed into his pockets, producing water purification tablets for Zach to add to their bottles, and a knife for cutting out the dry undergrowth to build a fire with.

"I thought you were leaving town that last time I saw you. How'd you get stuck in the city?" Zach asks as they wait for the fire to burn down enough to cook with.

"I left well ahead of the raids, and I was about six hours out from Ophir when I got a call from a friend that needed help getting out of the city, and I turned around and drove right back."

"Did you get them out?"

"Yeah, but we had to split up, so I gave her the car and told her I'd catch a train. It's a good thing you called when you did, because the train goes nowhere near Noctis, and it would have taken me a week to get there from Alliance."

"Are you from Noctis?"

"I might as well be, with how much time I've spent there the last few years, and it certainly feels like home. But I originally came from Ophir. Those were…unhappier times." Andrew's tone is deliberately light as he avoids Zach's eyes and pokes at the fire with his left hand. "So tell me: how does McDonald's get its chicken nuggets to taste so good?"

Zach doesn't pry into Andrew's past and Andrew doesn't ask about his, and that suits both of them just fine. They have eggs on slightly-charred bread for a late lunch, Zach manages to make coffee that Andrew refuses to drink without milk or sugar, then there are a few hours left before sunset for Zach to get some more sleep before it's his turn to drive.

-

He's woken by the sound of a helicopter flying overhead, and the warmth of Andrew huddled next to him under the tarp.

"Is it them?" Zach whispers even though there's no way the helicopter can hear him.

"Abundance air force, actually, but I've got no doubt they're here on Viktor's orders," Andrew murmurs, peering out from under the tarp.

"What do we do?"

"We wait. They can't track us, so they're hoping to catch us on the move, but what's the closest air base from here? Two, three hours away? They can't stay out here for long."

Andrew sounds certain of this, but Zach can't relax until the helicopter flies off and doesn't come back.

"Let's move out," Andrew says, already reaching up to pull the tarp down.

"What if they send another one?"

"We'll soon be out of their range until they can get a forward operating base set up on the border, and by that time, we should be in Noctis."

"Will Noctis be able to defend itself if it comes under attack?"

"Noctis' best defence is not being able to be found, so as long as we don't lead the ASC there, we won't have a problem."

They drive non-stop through the evening and night, changing drivers at the refuel stations along the road. One at a crossroads even has a small water pump and a weathered picnic table that looks like it'll crumble to dust at the slightest touch.

"We're a little more than halfway to Noctis now," Andrew says as he fills up the bike and Zach fills up the bottles. "From here, we'll turn towards the mountains, then make our way through Mariner's Valley, and this time tomorrow, we'll have a roof over our heads and real beds to sleep in."

Helicopters with searchlights have been combing the desert all night, though none have come close to finding them. Andrew's confident they're far enough from the border now that they can afford to spend the daylight hours getting some much-needed uninterrupted sleep, and they make camp behind a rocky outcrop that unfortunately won't shelter them from the midday sun.

The tarp is only really meant for one person, Zach discovers as he and Andrew have to almost sit in each other's laps to fit underneath it. Still, it's better than being out in the direct sunlight, and it's not like they haven't spent the last twenty-odd hours all but literally stuck to each other. Zach's asleep anyway before he can give further thought to any potential awkwardness that might arise.

He wakes with a start with his head on Andrew's shoulder and thinks for a moment that maybe Andrew's fallen asleep and he can stealthily move away, but then Andrew shifts, and Zach can feel him looking down.

"It's not your turn to keep watch yet if you want to go back to sleep. And I promise I won't be offended if you want to lean against the wall instead; I've been told I have bony shoulders that aren't good for sleeping on."

"Whoever told you that was a liar," Zach mumbles, not sitting up. "'S'nothing wrong with your shoulders." Not when Zach's head fits so nicely in that space between Andrew's collarbone and his neck.

Andrew chuckles. "I'm glad to hear that."

Zach tries to go back to sleep—he doesn't get as much sleep as he should even on good nights, and being on the run only able to take intermittent naps doesn't help—but every time he closes his eyes, the air grows heavy and stale, and his lungs feel like there's a great weight pressing down on them.

"Tell me about Noctis," he says after a fruitless few minutes. "Is it very different to Ophir?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Andrew says without asking about Zach's sudden interest. "In Ophir, everyone's too afraid to even have their own opinion, but in Noctis, you're free to say whatever you want. It's a place for misfits, outcasts, and yes, its fair share of criminals, but the point is, anyone can find a home there no matter what they've done or where they've come from."

It sounds too good to be true and Zach knows how the saying goes about things like that, but for now, he allows himself to be lost in the fantasy of having a place he can truly call home.

"Noctis was a trading post first, you know," Andrew continues. "Then people started putting down roots, and the city grew up around the tents and stalls."

Andrew keeps talking about what Noctis is like today, but all too soon, Zach is falling asleep. This time, he dreams of standing on a balcony, feeling completely at peace as he looks over a crowd of people laughing and dancing as lights flash and music plays in the background. Someone's hand is in his, and when he looks down, he sees metal fingers.

Zach tries not to read too much into the dream, but it's harder to ignore once night falls and they resume their approach to Mariner's Valley, far too close together on the back of Zach's bike.

He's so focused on trying not to make it weird that he misses the sound of the engine until the plane is flying overhead, much closer to the ground than he usually sees them.

It's a good thing Andrew's driving, because Zach might have crashed the bike into one of the many boulders starting to litter the landscape at the plane's sudden appearance. Andrew, however, maintains a steady course, steering them into the canyon and slowing down only a little as he navigates the dizzying twists and turns, finally stopping under an overhang of rock large enough to hide them from the view of passing aircraft.

"What are we going to do about the plane?" Zach asks. The road to the canyon had been more of a well-beaten track than a real road, and they'd kicked up a large enough cloud of sand behind them to be more than visible in the moonlight.

"Well, they definitely saw us," Andrew says after a moment of consideration. "But these canyons run nearly the full length of the desert, and we're heading west to where it joins up with a cave network and we won't be able to be tracked from the air. Besides, that plane was headed away from here."

"Then what are you worried about?"

Andrew laughs and looks over his shoulder as much as he can. "I'm not worried. Why would you think that?"

Maybe Zach's just projecting, but Andrew seems uncharacteristically still in front of him, as if waiting for something to happen.

"So we're going to keep moving?" Zach asks.

"Of course, yeah. The entrance to the caves is just up ahead, and from there, it's not far to Noctis."

It's about a half hour later that Zach thinks he can hear signs of them not being the only people wandering the caves, then Andrew turns a corner and the tunnel spits them out into a large cavern bursting to life with more people than Zach usually sees on a daily basis, loading and unloading cargo into trailers, sleds, vans, motorcycles, and even a large box truck that wouldn't look out of place at work delivering new stock to the back door.

Andrew seems to know everyone, from the man leading a train of camels towards a water trough to the woman operating a crane that’s lifting empty pallets to a higher level of the cave and lowering filled ones. Some people cast curious glances over Andrew’s shoulder at Zach, but he expertly deflects any questions they might have before they’ve even asked them. Andrew’s clearly in his element here, whereas Zach can do little else but stare and stick to Andrew's side like glue.

This is the meeting place of suppliers and middlemen, Andrew explains, and though basic facilities have been set up for their convenience, it's nothing compared to Noctis itself. Still, there's a place to refuel the bike, and Andrew tasks Zach with buying them something to eat while he gets in touch with some contacts.

It takes Zach a good twenty minutes to wait in line for overpriced sandwiches that look as good as anything out of a five-star restaurant after the improvised meals they've been having, but Andrew isn't waiting at the bike like he'd said he would be.

Zach takes a deep breath and looks around first instead of immediately giving in to his rising panic, and he manages to spot Andrew by the entrance to a cave labelled 'Bunkhouse', talking to someone. Both of them look serious and more than a little worried, an expression Zach's only seen on Andrew that night Zach had thought would be the last they'd see each other.

Zach considers going over in case they're talking about what had happened in Ophir, but then Andrew and the other person are parting ways, and Andrew comes over so absorbed in his thoughts that he startles when Zach calls his name.

"Oh, there you are," Andrew says. "Ready to go? The tunnels are quiet right now, so we should be able to make good time. Maybe we'll even get to Noctis in time to see the sunrise! Won't that be great?" His usual smile is back in place as he claps Zach on the shoulder and climbs onto the bike.

"What were you and that other person talking about?" Zach asks.

"Just business," Andrew says, a little too casually.

"News from Ophir?"

"No, but if we get any, you'll be the first person I tell."

There's something in the timbre of Andrew's voice that tells Zach he's carefully choosing his words so that nothing he says is technically a lie—a tactic Zach had used himself in his younger days to get out of trouble with the authorities—but he's in no position to be demanding Andrew tell him anything right now, so he just smiles back and says, "Great, thanks."

Andrew holds eye contact for just a little too long, and Zach knows that he knows that—nevermind who knows what, they're just two people looking at each other perfectly aware the other's not quite lying, and with that mutual understanding, Zach climbs onto the back of the bike and Andrew drives them deeper into the tunnels.

Every tunnel looks the same to Zach, but Andrew navigates the maze with ease even though there aren't any lights, markings, or a map to lead the way. In some places, they're close enough to the surface that the silvery moonlight comes in through cracks in the rock, and in others, it's so dark and quiet that Zach has keep reminding himself that the likelihood of the floor falling through or the ceiling caving in is actually incredibly low.

Two hours later, Andrew brings the bike to a stop at a checkpoint in a tunnel that looks just like all the others except better lit, but once they pass through—all Andrew has to do is give the guards his name and they seem content to let Zach in without further questions—they're met by huge metal doors set into the wall. There aren't any handles or some other way to open the door that Zach can see, but then the doors slowly begin to retract, and soft sunlight floods into the tunnel.

"Welcome to Noctis," Andrew says.


	3. 1AM in Noctis

Despite the early hour, the streets are packed with people, and as Andrew drives through at just above walking pace, the crowd doesn't so much part before them as slowly shuffle around so that they're swept along like a boat on the water. They're deep in the canyon now, and when Zach looks up, all he can see are the rows of houses built into the walls, and a narrow opening at the top that lets in just enough light to see by without the accompanying heat.

When the crowd gets so packed they’re better off walking than painstakingly inching along, Andrew turns off the main street and parks the bike in an alcove alongside several others.

The building they continue towards that Andrew calls 'the palace' certainly lives up to its name, with an imposing staircase and ornate columns outside, and opulent, high-ceilinged rooms and hallways inside. They go straight to the top floor where Andrew has Zach stay in the waiting area at the top of the landing while he goes to talk to someone called 'the prince'.

"I'll just be a minute," Andrew says, but a minute turns into five turns into ten turns into thirty, and Zach starts drifting off under the watchful eyes of the two heavily-armed guards at the door. He'd been afraid of leaning too far back into the plush cushions of the couch as it's been about three days since his last shower and he's covered in sweat and sand, but the guards don't seem interested in intervening, and the cushions are incredibly comfortable.

Just ten minutes after he'd closed his eyes, the door opens. It's not Andrew, but a lavishly-dressed woman who makes eye contact with Zach and beckons him into the room.

Sunlight filters in through the stained-glass windows, casting colourful spots of light across the floor while music plays softly in the background and clusters of people converse with each other while seated on couches or reclining by low tables. In a booth cordoned off by heavy curtains that very effectively block out all outside noise, is Andrew sitting at a table with a man of elegant dress and refined bearing that can only be the prince.

Andrew stands up at Zach's arrival, but the prince remains comfortably sprawled across one of the couches around the table, his casual manner belying the sharp, calculating look in his eyes.

"Zach, this is Dandolo, the Prince of Noctis," Andrew says. "Dandolo, this is—"

"The Technomancer!" Dandolo exclaims, waving at the couch to his left. "Come, sit. We have much to talk about."

"That's classified," Zach says, not sitting down. "Where did you hear that name?" It's not even in Zach's military record, if Dandolo had somehow managed to get his hands on it.

"I know some _very_ resourceful people." Dandolo's smiling as he looks over at Andrew.

"Sit down, Zach," Andrew says, not making eye contact as he sits back down himself.

Zach looks warily between them before taking a seat on the edge of the couch as far away from Dandolo as he can. "What do you want from me?"

"My dear boy, you're the one who came to us," Dandolo says.

"Because the ASC, who's after _you_, is now after _me_ for selling your guys a couple of coffees and burgers. And like, five hundred chicken nuggets. Which is my _job_."

"Zach," Andrew says quietly. "Viktor's not after you because we talked a few times; he's had your old unit arrested, and you're next."

The words take a few seconds to register in Zach's brain. "He can't do that. On what charge?"

"Treason."

It's just as well Zach decided to sit down, because he feels like he would have fallen over otherwise; treason is one of the charges that still warrant the death penalty in Abundance, and he wouldn't put it past the ASC to quietly dispose of their prisoners without giving them a proper trial. "But…they wouldn't have—when did this happen?"

"Just this morning. Remember the plane we saw? It was heading back to Abundance from the front."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"It was just a hunch. But then one of my contacts confirmed it, and the reports have been coming in since we arrived in Noctis."

The person Andrew had been talking to outside the bunkhouse. The not-quite lie he’d told Zach. Though technically, it isn’t news from Ophir, Zach supposes.

"You could have told me then."

"What could you have done?"

Nothing useful, maybe, but not being the last person to find out would have been nice, considering he’s the only person in this booth with a personal stake in this.

"Why are you even bothering to tell me now?"

"Because we thought you might like to partake in the rescue effort," Dandolo cuts in breezily.

"You're—why?"

"Putting aside the fact that treason in Abundance nowadays means whatever the ASC wants it to mean, I've had my people keep an eye your little squad ever since Viktor started showing an interest several weeks ago, and I can say with near-complete certainty that their arrest stands to benefit no one but himself."

"We think he's planning to stage a coup," Andrew says.

"And once that man gets what he wants, who knows what he might set his sights on next? A sovereign city in the desert, perhaps?"

It's…not as outrageous as it sounds, not if Viktor already has as much influence over the army as it sounds like he has.

"How do the Technomancers come into this?" Zach asks.

"We'll be sure to ask them once we spring them from whatever hole the ASC has locked them in. Now, away with the two of you! I need space to think." Dandolo makes a shooing motion with his hands.

-

Andrew takes Zach to a kitchen in the lower levels of the palace where the cooks give them leftovers from breakfast, then they go back upstairs to a balcony that overlooks the flowing drapes and strings of lights that hang over the caravanserai. Andrew seems to be working up to saying something, but before he can get it out, the balcony doors are thrown open with a bang.

"Andrew!" It's the woman who'd been with Andrew the morning he showed up half dead in the drive-thru, but Zach can't remember her name. She doesn't even look at him as she pulls Andrew into a bone-crushing hug. "You made it!"

"Niesha, hey," Andrew says with a tired smile, and returns the hug with just as much force. "I'm glad to see you too."

Zach has to clamp down on a pang of jealousy that rises up at their closeness and familiarity, and reminds himself that the quiet companionship he and Andrew had shared on the road had never been meant to last.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard you'd arrived already! How did you get here so fast? I thought you were going to catch the train."

"I ended up getting a lift." Andrew nods at Zach, and Niesha finally turns around and looks at him.

"Viktor went after you too, did he? I heard about your old squad. Sucks that he had to drag you into this too after you'd gotten out."

Does _everyone_ in Noctis know? It certainly feels like it, but Zach's still too numb to be properly upset, so he only mumbles out a "thanks."

Niesha sits down on the bench with them on Andrew's other side, and fills the silence by telling Zach about the history of Noctis, and updating Andrew on what's changed since the last time he was here. From the sounds of things, it’s been several months, during which Andrew’s been living on the road or in questionable motels on the outskirts of various cities in Abundance and Aurora.

After about half an hour, a messenger from Dandolo comes looking for Niesha, leaving Zach and Andrew alone together again. Their plates are both empty by now, but neither of them gets up.

"Why'd you come back?" Zach asks.

"Hm?" Andrew says distractedly, looking over at him.

"That first time, after the shooting. Why did you come back? For all you knew, the police were looking for you, and at least two people had seen your face."

"I make sure to stay up to date on what the police know about me; they're far from the top of my list of concerns. Maybe I wanted to see _your_ face again, did you ever think of that?" Andrew raises his eyebrows suggestively.

"Was that your cover for spying on me?"

Andrew shifts so that he can face Zach properly. "You want to know what happened? Yes, I looked you up after we met. I looked all of you up: the farm boy who moved to the big city in search of a better life, the bitter graduate whose degree got him nowhere, your general manager, the day shift workers, the guy who delivers your fries, even the construction workers hired to patch the place up. I needed to know how much damage control had to be done.

"When I found out you were a vet who got discharged from the army for being injured in the line of battle, I felt bad for dragging you into my world, even accidentally. I really did go back to apologise, and you told me you never wanted to see me again, which I thought was fair. That would have been the last time, except I got myself shot up a little and Niesha decided to bother you about it—I didn't tell her to, I swear—and I thought the least I could do was say thanks for the help. And you forgot to tell me not to come back."

"So you came back."

"I did."

"And you came back again."

"And _you _took my number. Then you texted me. On the same day, even."

"I did." Zach can't explain why, except maybe for the overwhelming loneliness and need for meaningful human connection that his therapist tells him is responsible for the hollowness that fills him in quiet hours. He'd gone on a few experimental dates, joined a shooting club to make acquaintances outside of work, had a panic attack at the shooting club and not gone back, and eventually resigned himself to a routine so safe he'd be bored to death before anything happened that could trigger one of his poorly-repressed memories.

Then Andrew had swept into his carefully-arranged life early one morning and turned everything upside down, and Zach had let him. Worse, he'd liked it: the smiles, the texts, the irregular visits at odd hours, the way that Andrew looked at him like there was nothing else worth looking at.

"So, what now?" Andrew asks after several minutes of silence have passed.

Zach wants to lean over and claim the kiss they hadn't gotten to share in the drive-thru, just to see if it'll set off sparks like in the fairytales, like a fanciful part of him imagines their first kiss will be like. _But what if it doesn’t?_ a more cynical part supplies. What if there's nothing? What if the tenuous connection between them is just two people using each other as a temporary crutch?

"I don't know," Zach says. "I just…need some time. It's been a while." Over two years, actually, since his last hurried fumble with a fellow junior officer in a dark, empty office in a base on the front, and over four since he'd gone out with anyone on enough consecutive dates to call it a relationship.

"I've got time," Andrew says. "Let me know when you decide, but until then, we should probably find you somewhere to sleep." He gets to his feet. "Come on."

There's a maze of corridors under the palace with rooms for people who are 'personal guests of the prince', which Zach supposes follows a very loose definition, because the person in charge of room assignations doesn't even question who Zach is when Andrew asks her what empty beds they have.

Zach gets assigned a room with someone named Boris, who Andrew says he knows in passing as a good guy who keeps to himself and works the morning shift at the loading bay, so they probably won't cross paths at all if Zach continues to keep his nocturnal hours.

"I'm down to your right, then the first right, and second door on the left," Andrew says before he leaves to get some sleep himself. "I've got my own room, so just come by and knock if you need anything."

"I will, thanks."

Being situated in a tunnel—a fancy one with carpet runners and directional wall lights, but a tunnel nonetheless—means there are no windows in the room, so Zach turns on the lamp on the bedside table before going to sleep, and for good measure, the one by Boris' bed too. Even though the bed is hard and the sheets smell strongly of soap, it's still magnitudes more comfortable than anywhere Zach's slept the last few days, and he falls asleep not long after closing his eyes.

He's rudely awoken just after noon by loud music coming from somewhere, but to its credit, it does wake him up quickly enough that he can't remember which nightmare his brain had decided to play for him this time.

He rolls over onto his other side and tries to go back to sleep, but the thumping bass and snippets of singing he can hear are annoying enough that he gets out of bed and leaves the room with the intention of hunting down the culprit. However, with all the echoes, it's hard to pinpoint the source, and he runs into Andrew first, coming down the other way.

"The music's coming from upstairs," Andrew says wearily. "There's never a quiet moment in Noctis, but you get used to it quickly."

"You're up now," Zach points out. It's been less than five hours since they'd parted ways, and Andrew had driven the last leg of the journey here, so he's got to feel even more tired than Zach does.

"Too many quiet nights on the road." Andrew runs a hand over his face. "I'll try again tonight. How about you?"

"Where were you going?"

"I was going to check in with some people, but since you're up, we should find some things for you to put in your room—you could be in Noctis a while, so you might as well make yourself comfortable while you're here."

Andrew takes Zach into the caravanserai, which is so crowded that the drapes overhead that Zach had seen earlier have been pulled back to let out the heat generated by having so many people in the one place. Zach makes sure to stay close to Andrew so they don't get separated, and even standing right next to each other, they have to shout to be heard over the crowd.

Neither the heat nor the noise seem to bother Andrew, and he expertly navigates both as he peruses the stalls and haggles with the merchants for clothes Zach can wear that aren't his uniform that he's had on for nearly three days now. They have lunch at a small standing table in an alley lined by food stalls, and dinner in a dining room in the palace with Niesha and dozens of other people she and Andrew know. They try to draw Zach into conversation a few times, but give up after he only offers a few unenthused one-word answers in return.

He's quite content to sit in the middle of it all and listen to the people around him talk, marvelling in the normalcy of the life they've been able to build out here, far from the machinations of faceless governments that seem all too eager to throw their people into one war after another. This could be home if he lets it, Zach thinks, but somehow, it also feels a lot like running away.

-

Zach wakes up at one o’clock to total darkness, and though a small part of his mind tries to make the case that he’s in a bed, not under a pile of rubble, it’s not enough to ease the tightness in his chest. He fumbles on the night stand for the lamp switch but only succeeds in knocking over the clock, and decides to stumble outside in search of light instead.

He wanders half-blind through the hallways until he finds himself getting a faceful of the cold night air, and staggers out onto a balcony. The moon and stars are out in full force, and below, the Noctis nightlife fills the air with music and laughter and tiny pinpricks of warm light.

Zach feels himself shivering, and he realises he's out here barefoot in just a t-shirt and sleep pants, but staying outside is still preferable to going back inside to the dark, quiet halls, and at least he won't disturb anyone if he somehow manages to fall asleep and has another nightmare. He curls up on one of the benches and wraps his arms around himself, clenching his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering.

A blanket drapes itself over his shoulders.

"Can't sleep?" Andrew says, sitting down next to Zach. He's not wearing his prosthetic, but he does a better job of pulling the blanket around Zach than Zach's shaking fingers do.

"Did I wake you?" Zach asks. He can't remember if he'd gone past Andrew's room or not, or even how to get back to his own from here.

"I was already up."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, until something about Andrew's unwavering presence compels Zach to talk.

"I got discharged from the army about a year ago," he says. "There was…an incident."

"In a mine?" Andrew quietly prompts when Zach stops.

Zach had forgotten Andrew had already seen his file, and who knows what else if he already knew about the Technomancers and the mine incident.

"I didn't—the report didn't go into detail, if you want to tell me about it," Andrew says.

Of course it wouldn't have. The mission report would have covered the number of casualties, prisoners, and what actions the squad had undertaken, but nobody had asked Zach what it was like to be trapped in the dark for three days, bruised and bleeding and afraid to move for fear of the small pocket of space around him collapsing even further, yet forced to when the voices of those trapped with him grew faint then silent, and he'd crawled painstakingly through the tight space to strip their bodies of food and water. Not until he was far from the front, at least, and it definitely wouldn't have made it into the mission report.

He tells Andrew now, lets his head rest on Andrew's shoulder as he spares no detail of the terror that had gripped him when faced with the prospect of a slow death by suffocation or dehydration, of how rescuers had finally made contact after three days but couldn't get him out for another three until they'd stabilised the surrounding area. Through it all, Andrew only makes small noises of encouragement, and holds Zach close with his arm around Zach's shoulders.

"I used to be in the army too, you know," Andrew says after Zach finishes his story with how he'd gotten a job at the McDonald's in Ophir and tried to move on with his life. "Well, sort of. I was a cadet, about ten years ago."

Zach sits up and looks at Andrew. "So was I. Did we ever meet?" Abundance isn't so big that it has more than one cadet training camp, but Zach can't remember if he'd ever met a boy named Andrew there.

"Don't think so; I think I'd remember someone like you."

Zach scoffs. "Hardly. I was a bit of an outsider, not being from a military family like the rest of my class. Though, there was…"

There'd been a boy in the class above Zach's who'd been hugely popular despite not coming from a military background, much to the annoyance of one of Zach's classmates, Alan, who never missed an opportunity to complain about how the army was 'letting all sorts of people in these days'. His name had been…something unusual, almost certainly a nickname, but everyone, even their teachers, had called him by it.

"Have you ever gone by a different name?" Zach asks.

Andrew chuckles self-consciously. "Yeah, they used to call me Lucky. Y'know, because I was: I got accepted into training because the recruitment officer needed to fill his quota, accidentally stood up to the resident bully on my first day and won, been on the winning side for nearly every team exercise we did, got accepted into officer training early because someone dropped out at the last minute…I suppose being the only survivor of an explosion that killed the rest of my unit counts too. But…it was a long time ago. I don't go by that name anymore."

"I had a huge crush on you when we were kids," Zach blurts out, dimly aware that Andrew's trying to share something deeply personal, but the realisation goes a long way in explaining the strange magnetism he feels between them.

Andrew only laughs and leans in even closer until their foreheads are almost touching. "How about now?"

Zach remembers having a dream almost exactly like this. It had ended here, but he can guess how it would've gone next.

Andrew's staying perfectly still, waiting for Zach to make his move. Zach turns his head and slowly leans in to close the distance between their lips.

Sparks don't fly. In fact, the opposite happens, and Zach feels the anxious roiling in his stomach quieten as Andrew brings up his hand to cup the back of Zach's head.

"I take it you've decided?" Andrew murmurs when they part for air.

"It didn't take that long after all." Zach kisses Andrew again, then once more for good measure, and notes that the attraction he feels hasn't lessened any for acting on it; maybe not so temporary of a crutch after all.

"Let's go back inside," Andrew says after a gust of wind blows through the balcony and has him moving even closer to Zach. "There should be people in the lounge even at this hour, and plenty of couches and cushions to sleep on."

Zach reluctantly gets up and lets Andrew guide him back down to the first floor where a handful of people are gathered, talking, playing card games, and even sleeping. Some of them look up in interest when Zach and Andrew shuffle into the room, but no one says anything when they walk right by.

Andrew leads Zach to a corner partially hidden behind a curtain, and they curl up on the couch there, Zach arranging the blanket around both of them while Andrew pulls Zach against his side. It's almost too dark in here for Zach to be at ease, but the comforting warmth of Andrew next to him is better than any light, and Zach quickly finds his eyes closing of their own accord.

-

"There you are." Niesha's standing in front of Zach, and he stares back at her in confusion for a few seconds until he realises she's talking to Andrew, who's still tucked into Zach's side and hasn't even opened his eyes.

"Are you sleeping in?" Niesha says accusingly. "After all that talk yesterday about making sure to get up early for training before it got too hot?"

Andrew finally rouses. "What time is it?"

"It's seven o'clock, the sun is rising, and you're still asleep."

"I'm awake," Andrew says with a groan. "Give me ten minutes to get dressed and I'll see you there."

"Don't keep me waiting." Niesha leaves, the curtain swaying gently in her wake.

Andrew stays motionless for another minute or so, his head on Zach's shoulder, before he looks up at Zach as if seeing him for the first time.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Andrew tilts his head up in invitation, and Zach leans down to kiss him. Andrew's smiling when they separate, and Zach can feel a smile forming on his own face.

"Wanna come see me kick Niesha's ass?" Andrew asks.

"That's a hell of a first date."

Andrew laughs. "We can do breakfast afterwards. I might even be able to convince Niesha not to tag along."

Zach follows Andrew to his room, which is only slightly smaller than the one Zach shares with Boris, and markedly more lived-in, with crumpled sheets on the bed, clothes thrown over the backs of chairs, and tools and scraps of metal and wire scattered across the table that Andrew's prosthetic is sitting on.

"Did those clothes we bought yesterday get delivered to your room yet? You can borrow some of mine, if you like." In the time it'd taken Zach to look around his room, Andrew's taken his shirt off and is rummaging through a drawer. Zach can't help but stare at the smooth lines of his back, broken by old but still vivid scars on the left side.

"Here, try this." Andrew tosses something in Zach's direction, and a bunch of fabric hits him in the face, startling him out of his reverie. "Just so you know, when I invite people to my room and we start taking our clothes off, it's usually not so we can immediately put on different clothes and leave."

"Thanks, now I feel special," Zach says, pulling what turns out to be a shirt and pair of pants off his face. "You really know how to show a guy a good time."

"If this is your idea of a good time, what I plan on doing later will blow your mind." Andrew winks as he pulls a shirt over his head.

"What are you planning?"

"You'll have to wait and see. Niesha does not take being stood up well."

Niesha's waiting in a ring formed by the natural dead-end of a tunnel that has walkways circling the walls overhead for spectators to get a clear view without getting in the way. Zach climbs the stairs while Andrew picks a staff from the rack by the entrance and gives it an experimental spin and flip before continuing into a more structured warm up sequence.

Zach can't look away as Andrew shifts fluidly from one stance to another, his body following the movement of the staff like it's a part of him. When he finishes warming up and gives Niesha the go-ahead to start, it's clear from the first strike that she doesn't stand a chance.

Andrew's earlier bold claim about being able to easily defeat Niesha doesn’t seem so bold now, as she spins and strikes and thrusts but can't seem to land a hit. Zach can't hear them well from where he is, but Andrew sounds like he's giving Niesha advice while effortlessly blocking every one of her blows, and after a while of the fight going nowhere, he turns on the offensive.

It's over too quickly for Zach to see what happened; one moment, Niesha's changing her stance and getting her staff ready to block, and the next, she's sprawled out on the floor while Andrew gives his staff a final twirl before planting it in the ground. They exchange a few words, then Andrew holds out his hand, pulls Niesha to her feet, and they start again.

-

"What did you think?" Andrew asks as he deposits the staff back on the weapon rack and wipes the sweat off his brow on the sleeve of his shirt.

"Guess you weren't being full of yourself earlier after all," Zach says, not sure why he's so surprised when Andrew's proven himself to be more than capable in several other fields. "Is there anything you're not good at?"

Andrew grins at him. "Niesha's a much better shot with a gun, but when it comes to close quarters, she doesn't stand a chance. I help her practise when we've got some time together, though."

"You were amazing," Zach says. "I can't believe the army ever let you go."

"They didn't…'let me go', exactly." The smile fades, but Andrew doesn't change the subject. "What was the official story they fed the rest of you?"

It's a sad testament to how many people have come and gone from Zach's life that he needs a minute to think about the last time he'd seen Andrew. "I think they told us you were dead."

"They say how?"

"Uh, you and a few others went away to a different base for training, and while you were there, the Aurorans attacked and left no survivors."

"I thought they'd do something like that." Andrew sighs. "Here's what really happened: twelve of us were selected for a 'special training exercise', only it wasn't so much training as being decoys while the actual forces the army deployed snuck into the Auroran base through the back. No one in our squad survived except me. Woke up in the infirmary less one arm, and overheard a bunch of officers in the corner trying to figure out how to get rid of me without attracting any attention. Saved them the trouble by hopping on a supply truck out of the base that night, and I've never looked back."

"That's horrible," is all Zach can say.

"Yeah, so you'll have to forgive me for not having many warm feelings for the army. But enough of that, it's an incident ten years past and not how I wanted to start this day with you. How about breakfast then a tour of the city? There's much more to it than what you saw yesterday."

"I'd like that."

Zach's never been disillusioned into thinking that war isn't hell, but for their own side to send a dozen teenagers into an active warzone as a distraction at best, then try to frame the incident as a deliberate attack by their enemies…Zach's not sure if he's so invested in saving Abundance from the ASC after all. It takes a certain kind of environment for a man like Viktor to rise to the top and stay in power, and if the city's corrupt from the inside out, there might be nothing left to save.

Even with that in mind, what bothers him most is the thought that his old squadmates, most of whom had been high-ranking officers before they'd joined the Technomancers, had known the truth and chosen to perpetuate the lie. He's still going to rescue them as they're the closest thing he's ever had to family, but once they're safe, he's going to want some answers.


	4. 12AM on the Road

Zach's not sure what to expect when Dandolo sends a messenger asking him to come up to the palace, but it sure isn't Amelia, still in uniform with her usual belt of tools around her hips and a bag slung over her shoulder.

"Amelia?"

"Zach, it's really you!" If Amelia were the hugging type, Zach might have found himself with an armful of her. As it is, she doesn't even move, but the surprise then relief is visible on her face. "I thought this guy was having me on when he told me you were here."

"What are you doing here?"

"Ah shit, I don't even know." She scuffs her sand-caked boot across the exquisite woven rug they're standing on.

"Your friend here came to offer her assistance in our rescue operation," Dandolo says delicately, eyeing the dusty streak left behind.

"Look, I don't know what's going on, and it's not really my thing to take sides, but we've known each other for years, and I figure that's gotta count for something, right?"

Beneath the semi-permanent air of nonchalance that Amelia projects, Zach can see she's searching for reassurance that she's doing the right thing, that she hasn’t thrown away her life and gone against everything she’s ever known for nothing.

"I hope so," he says, and receives an exasperated glare in return. The thing is, he’s still not so sure himself.

"I'm sure the two of you have much to talk about," Dandolo says, looking pointedly at the door.

Zach doesn't even know where to start, but once they're outside of the palace, Amelia says, "I'm fucking starving, where can I get some food around here that's not a ration bar?"

"Let's have lunch together; there's some people I want you to meet."

Andrew and Niesha meet them at a café built into the side of a cliff that faces the open desert, the part with rolling dunes and not a living thing in sight, not even worth fighting over for Abundance or Aurora to add a few hundred thousand square kilometres to their territory.

"Alliance is somewhere out that way." Amelia points off into the distance. "Went almost all the way to the border once with a scouting mission looking for water."

"I've been to Junction Complex," Andrew says. "It's real different to Ophir or Shadowlair. Full of great tech, though."

"Sounds like my kinda city. Maybe I should've headed that way instead."

"How did you even find Noctis?" Zach asks. "I thought it was supposed to be a secret city."

"There was this girl, Abbie, she was delivering parts to the workshop and I asked her if she'd heard anything from the other bases about what happened to the Technomancers. We got to talking, and she told me she knew some people who were going to break them out from wherever the ASC had stashed them, and I thought, to hell with it, what else've I got to lose?"

"Abbie—one of yours?" Zach asks Niesha.

She nods. "A friend."

"She convinced your medic friend Scott to come too, and we stole a rover, drove it across the desert, and here I am. And here you are. I thought they'd gotten you too, since you weren't picking up your phone."

"I had to get rid of it. Wait, you stole a rover? Scott's here too?"

"Yeah, he said something about being too old to be chased across the desert and went to find somewhere to sleep the moment we got here. And yeah, I stole a rover." Amelia shrugs like she hasn't just driven off with millions of dollars' worth of the army's R&D budget. "Thought it'd be the quickest way to get us out. I loaded it up with fuel, Abbie faked some transfer papers, and we just drove it right out of there. Someone’s probably noticed something’s up by now, but nobody followed us.”

“You just drove it out of there?” Andrew asks, a hint of awe creeping into his voice. “Past the guards, through the gates, just right out of the base?”

"Yeah, it was easy."

"You're my hero." Andrew holds up his hand for a high five and Amelia, though bewildered, returns it. "Can we see it?"

The rover’s parked in one of the caves under Noctis being used as storage space, with vehicles on one side and an assortment of pipes, sheet metal, and wind turbine blades taking up the other. Completely covered in sand, the rover doesn't look out of place amongst the weather-worn ATVs and motorcycles parked beside it.

Inside, it's more spacious than Zach had expected, though the interior is cluttered with empty jerry cans, water bottles, and ration packs. Andrew immediately gets in the driver's seat and runs his hands over the switches and knobs, eyes alight with excitement.

"Break anything and I'll break you," Amelia warns him before joining Zach in the back.

"Wish I had one of these when I was crossing the desert," Zach says.

"How'd you get here?"

"On my bike. With Andrew and whatever we could carry out of the service station by the Tharsis exit."

"Sounds rough. How'd your bike hold up? I know she wasn't made to go off road."

"Well, we made it, didn't we?" Zach hasn't checked on his bike since he'd arrived in Noctis, but he's not admitting that to Amelia. "It would've been real nice to have been in a car with air conditioning, but I have to say, the bike was easier to hide when the air force came looking for us with helicopters."

Amelia whistles. "We're really in it now, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but in times of trouble…"

"We should do whatever we need to survive. I remember."

"I can't wait until we go and get the others. There are so many things I need to ask them."

"Get in line."

They don't have to wait long, as Dandolo gets a small team of them together the next morning consisting of just Zach, Andrew, Niesha, Amelia, Scott, and a man named Phobos of imposing stature but soft words.

"The Technomancers are currently being held in a remote outpost rather than a prison or labour camp, likely so there are fewer witnesses around for when the ASC decide to get rid of them," Dandolo says. "The rescue itself should be relatively simple as the camp has few defences or personnel. It's making sure you're not followed to Noctis afterwards that's of more concern to me. I'll leave it up to you to decide on the best course of action; the quartermaster has been instructed to give you anything you ask for."

They leave just before noon, the six of them crammed into the rover with all the other equipment they're bringing. Andrew's up front with Amelia, the two of them talking animatedly about the rover in technical terms that fly right over Zach's head.

He passes the three-hour drive to the camp that's been set up at the halfway point to their destination by talking to Scott, who's not at all happy about being sent into the action but grudgingly admits his medical expertise might be of use.

"You were stationed at the Catena Base a few years ago, weren't you?" Zach quietly asks him under the hum of the rover's engine.

"A few years? It must have been over ten years ago now, but I suppose I was in the area, yes."

"Do you remember anything about a unit of cadets being sent there for training?"

Scott laughs. "What are you talking about? Cadets aren't allowed on the bases."

"Then surely you'd remember if you saw one? A teenage boy in the infirmary? It was right after we'd taken one of the Auroran bases in the area."

"Ten years is a long time ago," Scott muses. "When you've lived as long as I have, my boy, the years will start to blur together."

"So you don't remember?"

"I'm afraid not."

-

The Noctians at the halfway camp share what observations they've been able to make from a distance without alerting the outpost, which aren't much as there's no cover for kilometres around. And since the outpost was built over an abandoned mine, there could very well be much more to it underground than what any scouts could see without going into the outpost itself.

Zach feels the blood drain from his face at the word 'mine'. Next to him, Andrew grabs his hand under the table and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

"We'll split into three groups to begin with," Niesha says, frowning down at the map of vague rectangles and lines that had been the best the scouts had been able to produce. "Two people as a distraction, two for disabling communications, and two to search for the prisoners. The first group can help the third once they're in, and the second can look for another ride since we won't all be able to fit in the rover."

"Zach and Amelia can take care of communications," Andrew says before Niesha can assign roles to everyone.

She gives him a strange look, but only says, "Sure. You and Phobos can be the distraction, and Scott and I will look for the Technomancers. Since it's most likely they'll be held in the mines, we'll go straight down, and you can search the buildings before joining us."

"Good plan. I make for an excellent distraction."

-

They approach the outpost from the west so that the setting sun is behind them, and as the chainlink fence around the compound comes into view, Amelia starts to accelerate.

"Everyone hold on!" she shouts as she points the rover at the gate.

Zach's sitting up front, so he has a clear view of the soldiers standing watch scattering out of the way, and the doors of the gate flying clean off the hinges as the front plate of the rover ploughs through. Once they're in, Amelia slams on the brakes and pulls sharply on the steering wheel so that they spin to a stop, and Andrew and Phobos are out the back door before Zach can even make sense of their surroundings.

While Andrew and Phobos are getting into position, the rover serves the role of distraction. Amelia drives it through the outpost, running into everything that even remotely looks like it can be knocked over, and laughs gleefully with every bit of chaos she causes. Zach doesn’t share her jubilation, but finds that he's actually enjoying this a little despite the knot of anxiety in his stomach at being back in combat, and at the thought of reuiniting with his old squad after over a year of separation.

Through luck or some kind of divine intervention, Amelia's rampage is perfectly timed to position the rover at the entrance to the mines just as a series of explosions go off on the other side of the outpost. That's Scott and Niesha's cue to get out, leaving Zach and Amelia to locate the outpost's communications equipment and disable it.

"You still remember how to use that?" Amelia asks as Zach picks up a pistol and checks the magazine.

"I think I can manage."

They’ve got helmets and bulletproof vests on which is a little too familiar for comfort, but Zach holds on to the fact that he’s up here and not in the mines, and grits his teeth and gets on with it.

Amelia sets explosives by the radio tower while Zach puts a few bullets through the radios in the command centre before packing the place full of explosives for good measure. Andrew and Phobos have done such a good job of being the distraction that only two soldiers come to investigate, their rifles at the ready and with every intention to shoot. Zach tries not to feel too guilty as he shoots one in the leg and the other in the arm, and strips them of weapons and radios while they're incapacitated.

At least he doesn't know either of them.

"You still got it," Amelia says with a grin as she comes skidding around the corner, ready to help. "Wanna do the honours?" She holds out the detonator.

"I couldn't take this moment away from you." He wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much as she would, and it probably wouldn't even make him feel better after shooting two of his previous brothers-in-arms.

They take cover behind the rover before Amelia presses the button, and they can feel it shake with the force of the blast, see rocks and sand flying overhead and around the sides. When the dust settles, there's little left of the tower and command centre but bits of scrap.

"Consider that taken care of," Amelia says with satisfaction. "Let's get my baby filled up and snag ourselves one of those trucks by the gate."

They're not exactly spoiled for choice with just two to choose from that could survive a high-speed escape across the desert, but she takes her time inspecting them while Zach refuels the rover and sets explosives on the vehicles they won't be taking to hinder pursuit.

Once Amelia picks a truck and they check it over for anything that can be used to track its position, Zach drives it to the entrance of the mine where Phobos has a group of soldiers under watch and Scott is tending to someone sitting on top of a supply crate.

"Ian!" Zach exclaims when he recognises who it is, jumping out from the truck's cab.

Behind him, there's another blast as Amelia detonates the explosives.

"Zachariah!" There's blood running down one side of Ian's face and his left arm has been splinted and put into a sling, but he raises his right and pulls Zach into a tender hug. "I'm so glad you're alright."

"You too." Zach searches Ian's face for some clue of how the last year has been, but all he can see are the same features he remembers, tired and worn, maybe a little more so than before. "Where are the others?" Zach asks, realising no one else is around.

"On their way up. We were helping your friends fight off the soldiers, but I'm afraid I had to bow out early."

A few figures are emerging from the depths of the mine as he speaks, and Zach's heart leaps with joy when he sees that they're mostly unharmed and in good spirits. Still, he doesn't let himself relax until all nine of them are out, with Andrew and Niesha bringing up the rear.

Andrew looks…angry. He's clearly trying to keep it hidden, but he keeps clenching his jaw and left hand and pointedly looking anywhere but at the Technomancers. Zach wants to go to him, but Andrew catches his eye and shakes his head slightly.

"Zach, Amelia, report," Niesha says, either oblivious to Andrew's bad mood or purposely ignoring it.

"Radio tower, communication devices, and all vehicles except this truck have been destroyed," Amelia says.

"Good, but we don't know how long we have until the army sends reinforcements, so we'd better hit the road." Niesha does a headcount, confirms everyone is present and well enough to travel, then assigns Andrew as the driver of the truck that'll be carrying the Technomancers.

He shoots her a sharp look. "Get someone else to drive."

"I wasn't asking," Niesha says evenly, meeting Andrew's gaze. "You're the best driver we have, so get in there and don't argue."

The two of them have a silent conversation that mostly consists of stubborn glares, but eventually, Andrew opens the driver's side door of the truck.

"They all sit in the back." He climbs in and shuts the door with a bang loud enough to make Zach jump even though he'd been anticipating it.

Scott goes with the Technomancers so he can keep an eye on those who've been injured, and Sean takes his seat in the rover. There's room for more Technomancers to join them with Andrew driving the truck and almost all the explosives used up, but they prefer to stick together, and it'll be too crowded in the truck if Zach joins them there. At least this'll be a good chance for him to catch up with Sean, who he'd been the closest to out of the whole squad.

"How've you been?" Sean asks once they've left the outpost behind and are speeding across the desert, not quite as fast as they'd approached since it's completely dark now.

Niesha's in the passenger seat and Phobos is on the other side of the rover asleep or pretending to be, giving Zach and Sean the illusion of being alone.

"Well," Zach says, "first I got run out of Ophir by the ASC, then I crossed the desert on a motorcycle to a hidden city said to not even exist, broke into and destroyed an Abundance outpost, shot a few people I used to be on the same side as…I've had a hell of a week."

"I can only imagine. How are you holding up?"

"I'm hanging in there." Whether or not that's still true after the adrenaline wears off remains to be seen, but for now, he doesn't feel like he'll fall apart at the slightest touch. "What happened to you guys? I heard you were arrested by the ASC."

"The ASC." Sean scoffs. "More like Colonel Watcher's personal hit squad. He's become convinced we know something we shouldn't, and he won't let up until he finds out what.

"I'm sure there will be others also interested in hearing this, but for now, I'll tell you that all is not as it seems within the army: troops and supplies are being sent away from bases that need them to bases that don't, civilians with special clearance waltz in and out of wherever they please without having to disclose the purpose of their visits, orders come in that sound more like they'll prolong the war than end it…" Sean shakes his head and sighs. "I truly fear for the future of Abundance if actions like these continue to go unchecked."

Sean's never been much of a die-hard patriot, but Zach supposes there's an intrinsic desire in everyone to defend their home, whether from attack by external or internal forces.

"We're going to get to the bottom of this," he promises. "Things will change."

-

They stop at the halfway camp to refuel, stretch their legs, and check with the Noctians as to whether the army has gotten wind of the escape yet. So far, so good, and while the rover, truck, and Technomancers are scanned for tracking devices, Zach goes to check on Andrew, whose mood seems to only have gotten worse.

"What's going on?" Zach asks, putting a hand on Andrew's shoulder. "Did something happen back at the outpost?"

Andrew turns away so that Zach's hand slides off. "We should be getting back to Noctis. Dandolo's waiting for us." He starts walking back towards the truck.

"Andrew!" Zach calls after him, unsure if he should follow. He looks around for Niesha but instead finds Connor, who's staring after Andrew while his face runs through a gamut of emotions from wonder to…guilt? Zach's heart sinks.

"What did you say your name was?" Connor asks, approaching Andrew.

Andrew whirls around, a hard set to his jaw and a simmering fury in his eyes that almost has Zach backing up. "I didn't."

Connor, undeterred, takes another step forward. All eyes in the vicinity are on him and Andrew now, but no one dares to move or speak.

"Andrew?" Connor's voice is soft as he glances at Andrew's left side, prosthetic covered by the sleeve of his jacket and both his hands shoved deep into his pockets. "It's been so long. I thought you were dead."

"I think you'll find I'm not so easy to get rid of," Andrew says stiffly.

There's a sharp intake of breath to Zach's left, and he looks over at the Technomancers to find Ian staring at Andrew, recognition clear in his eyes. Zach wants to sit down, but his legs won't move.

"We weren't trying to get rid of you," Connor implores, inching forward while Andrew stands his ground. "We just wanted to send you somewhere where you could recover, and move on."

"Move on?" Connor's words have the opposite of the soothing effect he was probably hoping they would have. "You didn't want me to move on, you wanted to move me out of the picture so there'd be no one left to bear witness to what you did. You were probably wishing I'd died with the rest of them!"

"We never meant for you to die! Any of you! We meant for the Aurorans to think you were cadets who'd wandered off while training nearby, and that trying to discern your intentions would prove a sufficient distraction for us to get a strike team in place."

"I don't know what's worse," Andrew says with a hollow laugh, "sending a bunch of teenagers into an active war zone hoping they won't step on any land mines or be shot at, or simply not caring if they do."

He finally takes his attention off Connor to turn it on the other Technomancers, and Zach glances over as well, out of a perverse need to know who else had gone along with the plan. There are more expressions of shame and guilt than he'd expected to see, including on Ian and Scott, and not enough of the disbelief and horror apparent on the faces of everyone else gathered here. Zach's only consolation is that Sean seems to be one of the latter.

"We were desperate," Connor says. "We'd already lost so many trying to take that base. But it was a mistake to agree to the idea, I know, and if I could do it again—"

"But you can’t!" Andrew roars. If the others in the camp hadn't been aware something was going on, they surely were now. "Twelve people died because of your 'mistake'! And instead of owning up to it, you covered it up! Blamed it all on the Aurorans and a stroke of bad luck, and freed yourself of all responsibility, isn't that right?"

"Andrew," Connor pleads, his face creased with sorrow. "I'm so sorry. I can't undo what happened to you and to the others, but tell me what I can do now to make things right between us."

“You can go fuck yourself," Andrew spits out, his words laced with the most intense loathing Zach has ever heard. "Fuck you, fuck the army, and _fuck_ Abundance.” He turns on his heel and storms out of the camp, past the speechless onlookers and the boundary of the floodlights until he's swallowed by the darkness.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Amelia says.


	5. 11PM in Ophir

For a moment, nobody moves. Then Niesha turns back to the tent she'd been disassembling and Amelia pulls a wrench off a crate, dragging it along the surface with a loud scrape that seems to snap everyone else out of the trance they're in. Zach can see Ian trying to get his attention, but he turns away to help Niesha with the tent instead.

After fifteen minutes, the camp has been packed up, but Andrew still hasn't come back.

"We can't spare anymore time," Niesha says to Zach. "You should go get him."

"Me?" This seems like the sort of thing best done by a close friend, one who doesn't have a personal connection to the people responsible for Andrew's current mood.

"You play the good cop, and if it doesn't work, come get me and I'll play bad cop. Either way, we need to leave soon."

Zach finds Andrew not all that far away, sitting on a low rock staring out into the darkness. His elbows are resting on his knees, and his fingers are intertwined in a death grip.

"We have to go," Zach says gently when Andrew shows no sign of acknowledgement. 

"Am I being too unreasonable?" Andrew asks.

"You're asking me?"

"Yeah. You've worked with these people; you know them better than I do. And I've been so angry for so long I'm not sure I know any other way to feel about them."

Zach's not sure _he_ knows how he feels about them right now, but still, he pushes his own feelings aside to try and think rationally about the situation. "I think you have good reason to feel the way you do, but I also think that any thoughts you might have on the subject will be clearer after a few hours' sleep in a warm bed."

Andrew finally looks up and gives Zach a faint, tired almost-smile. "That does sound like a much better idea than sitting around in the middle of the desert."

"Come on." Zach holds out a hand. "Niesha's got Phobos driving the truck."

Andrew doesn't say anything the whole ride back to Noctis, just rests his head on Zach's shoulder and stares blankly at the opposite wall of the rover. A few times, he goes still enough that Zach thinks he's fallen asleep, but when Zach looks down, he's still awake, lost in thought.

-

Their hopes of getting in some rest after the long night they've had are dashed when the manager at the loading zone tells them Dandolo's asked them to report in the moment they arrive in Noctis. So they all wearily drag themselves up to the top floor of the palace, where Dandolo greets them as alert and put-together as he usually is despite the early hour.

"The famed Technomancers of Abundance!" he says with a flourish. "So good to finally meet you! What news from the front?"

"The fighting has quieted," Ian says, "but tension remains high."

"And what of your run-in with the ASC?"

"They seem to be angling for a treason charge, but haven't presented a shred of evidence to support it thus far."

"It's more than likely they were going to fabricate something contemptible enough to warrant immediate execution by firing squad in some remote location where your bodies will never be found. But you needn't worry about that any longer. What's of more interest is why Colonel Watcher sought to remove you from the picture in the first place."

"Something is amiss in the army," Ian says. "Has been for a while. We first noticed it after being deployed several times for missions with unclear parameters that were cancelled at the last minute, leaving us stranded with no orders. When we raised the issue with our superiors, they told us, essentially, to do as we were told and stop asking questions. So then we asked the officers on the ground—the captains and lieutenants—and a pattern began to emerge: platoons are being shuffled from one posting to another, never staying in one place for too long, keeping watch on outposts and shadow paths nowhere close to the front. Unfortunately, the ASC put an end to things before we could do anything with the information."

"Sounds to me like someone's trying to move as many soldiers as they can out of Ophir," Dandolo muses. "Then all that will be left to offer resistance will be the local police, their ranks likely already swarming with ASC. The quietest of coups." He looks amused by this realisation.

"What can we do about it?" Zach asks.

"If you wish to save Abundance from the ASC, you must first gather proof of their leader's misdeeds; soldiers unhappy with their assignments are more likely to simply be accused of desertion, or even treason, since Viktor seems to love throwing that term around. You'll have to move further up the chain, to people he has no hold over."

"Viktor might be a colonel, but only in the ASC," Sean says. "He's not supposed to have control over the army in the first place, and yet, here we are. How much further can we go?"

"You'll need to get more information from someone still on the inside," Dandolo says. "Concrete evidence that can't be disputed—video recordings, written orders, witness statements from officers very high up the chain of command. This will be difficult, as my people are spies, not fighters, and those within the army have stationed themselves in support roles, most of them far from the front."

"It's hard to get hold of anyone at the front these days even if we knew who to trust—personal phones have been banned for 'security reasons', and all communications have to be made on the radio over monitored frequencies."

Silence ensues as everyone tries to think of a way to circumvent the restrictions.

"I could ask my boss," Zach suggests when no one else speaks up.

"Your boss?" Dandolo asks. "At the McDonald's?"

"Yeah, Eliza. She's army reserves."

"Of course she is; you military types love to stick together. How certain are you that she won't go running to the ASC the moment you make contact?"

"I know she doesn't like them." She's never said it outright—no one in Abundance would dare—but Zach's seen the way her lips thin in disapproval whenever the TV plays news about the ASC.

"That doesn't mean the ASC can't force her to work for them," Niesha points out, "but I've got contacts in Ophir who might be able to put us in touch with members of the Assembly. If we're headed that way, you might as well try to contact your boss. Worst case, she sells you out, but we can plan for that."

"Very well," Dandolo says. "The two of you can go to Ophir. Andrew—"

"I'll go to Ophir too," Andrew says quickly. "We can cover more angles at the meet with three people than with two."

"Alright." If Dandolo finds anything strange about this, he doesn't outwardly show it. "Phobos, reach out to our people in the Abundance army and see if they can gather any useful intelligence about the situation at the front. As for the rest of you, I can see you are all sorely in need of a few days' rest that you are welcome to take, but once you have recuperated, please, come back to see me. There is much work to be done, and every one of us must contribute to the cause, yes?" His tone is light, but the 'or else' tacked onto the end is clear.

"Of course." Ian inclines his head, warning received. "We thank you for your hospitality and will do whatever we can to assist."

Andrew makes himself scarce while Zach and Niesha arrange sleeping quarters for the Technomancers. Zach finds him later in his room, lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. He doesn't move when Zach lays down next to him, but he does close his eyes and lean in to Zach's touch.

"How did you know Connor?" Zach asks after a few minutes, quietly enough that Andrew can pretend he's asleep if he doesn’t want to talk about it.

"He was one of my instructors," Andrew murmurs without opening his eyes. "He was just a lieutenant back then, but it looks like he's come a long way since."

"Was he there, on that day?"

"No, there was no way the army would waste a perfectly good officer like that. They had some poor schmuck of an NCO lead our unit—some freshly-promoted sergeant. But when I woke up in the infirmary, the first thing I heard was Connor's voice. He probably isn't even the most to blame, but…"

"It hurts more when it's someone you were close to," Zach finishes for him. Devastated would be the smallest word for how Zach thinks he would feel if Sean had done something similar to him.

"Something like that." Andrew heaves a heavy sigh and rolls over so that he and Zach are pressed together. "I just need to be away from them for a while before I can even start to—it wasn't what I'd expected from the mission."

"Are you sure Ophir's the best place for you to be going back to right now?"

"Maybe not, but I'd rather be there with you than anywhere else without you." Andrew looks up at Zach, his eyes soft and warm with affection.

Zach leans down to kiss him, and for a moment, everything's alright again.

-

Eliza replies within minutes of Zach sending her a text asking if they can talk.

_Thank Shadow you're alright_, she begins, which is the first sign that something is off. _I was so worried when you weren't answering your phone_, she continues, to really get the message across. _Let's meet tonight, midnight at the fountain in the park down the road from work. Whatever's wrong, we can work it out, I promise_.

"Trap?" Andrew asks, reading the message over Zach's shoulder.

"Trap," Zach agrees, sending back a reply. _Can we_ _make it tomorrow night? I'm not in town at the moment and it'll take me a while to get there._

_Sure, tomorrow night it is._

_See you then. Don't call, getting rid of my phone now._

Zach, Andrew, and Niesha are already in Ophir, but the number's being routed through a cell tower somewhere near Shadowlair so that if the ASC manage to trace it back, they'll be watching the wrong roads for Zach's arrival.

Across from the park with a clear view of the fountain in the centre is an apartment building, where Zach and Andrew make themselves comfortable in the apartment of someone who's away on holiday—Zach doesn't ask how Andrew and Niesha found out, or how they got in—while Niesha goes for a jog and drops listening devices in strategic locations around the park. Then, it's just a matter of waiting for the ASC to show up.

They make their move in the morning before the meeting, though Zach doesn't notice until Andrew points it out to him.

"Keyboard player by the fountain, old man reading the newspaper, yoga instructor on the grass and most likely at least one of the students," Andrew says as he passes Zach the binoculars.

"No way." They look like perfectly normal people, not spies working for a corrupt intelligence agency.

"That's how they get you," Andrew says cheerfully.

"I'm pretty sure the guy running the hotdog van I was just at is also an informant," Niesha says as she walks into the apartment holding a bag smelling strongly of hot frankfurts and tomato sauce.

"The hotdog guy too?" Zach says with dismay, gladder than ever he'd decided not to stay in Ophir.

"Viktor will use anything he can to get people to turn on each other. Trust no one, but don't think that they're all willingly working for him either."

-

Andrew goes out to buy dinner so Niesha's not showing her face around the building too much, and he comes back with McDonald's.

"That'd better not have come from my store," Zach says. "Dave recognised you the last time he saw you."

"Of course not, give me some credit. I went to the Exchange."

"You didn't order your ridiculous coffee, did you?" Niesha asks.

"Not all at once." Andrew sets down a large coffee cup and a small one on the kitchen counter, pulls the container of sugar out of the pantry, and sets about mixing it all together.

"Ridiculous." Niesha fondly shakes her head. "Do you remember that first time we met?" she asks Zach. "Well, we didn't exactly meet, but I was out in the carpark setting a bomb while you were inside getting shot at by the ASC."

"Wait, those shooters were ASC?" Now that Zach thinks about it, the police had never gotten back to them about who was responsible for the shooting or whether they'd been caught.

"Yeah, but they covered it up well," Andrew says. "Just a single sentence in the news ticker and a throwaway line on the radio about masked gunmen shooting up a McDonald's, and it was all forgotten about the next day."

"Back to the important things," Niesha says, "this idiot"—she nods at Andrew—"comes running out with the ASC right behind him, and the only thing he can say to me is, 'Niesha, I saw a guy in there and he was _fine._'"

"Shut up," Andrew says, but he's laughing, and there's a slight pink tinge to his cheeks, though that might just be a result of the hot coffee he's drinking.

"And that time a bunch of us met up in Ophir for a week? He lied to everyone and said that McDonald's was the only place open that late at night."

Andrew half-heartedly shoves Niesha, but she forges on with more stories of jobs they've done together, and the hours until midnight fly by until Eliza shows up at exactly 11:55PM.

She's one of three people that they can see in the park, with odds being good that the other two are undercover ASC agents. She's wearing a long coat, scarf, and hat to ward against the night chill, though she takes off her hat and sets it down next to her when she sits at the edge of the fountain.

Midnight comes and goes, and at ten minutes past, Eliza finally breaks the silence.

"I told you he wasn't going to show," she mutters, looking down at her phone. "We should have picked a place outside the city."

There's a pause, presumably as whoever's on the other end of the line replies.

"Fine, but no later than one o'clock. I've still got work at six, you know."

Zach feels bad about making her wait out in the cold, but the plan had been to stand her up then watch her leave the park and see how many ASC agents followed her home. If they were few enough, Andrew and Niesha would keep them busy while Zach and Eliza got to talk.

At exactly one o'clock and not a second later, Eliza announces she's done waiting around for Zach, and stands up. There's a light splash as something falls into the water.

"And now I've dropped my hat," she says with undisguised annoyance. "What a great end to a night I told you nothing would come of." She fishes her hat out of the fountain and squeezes the water out of it before stomping off down the path, muttering unflattering things under her breath.

"Is your boss normally that clumsy?" Niesha asks.

"No, never." Zach's seen her cross a grease-covered floor without breaking her stride when it would have sent lesser beings sprawling after the first step.

"Then we've either witnessed a rare moment, or that was a very cleverly disguised drop. I think we should have a look in that fountain."

"What about the plan?"

"ASC's driving her home," Andrew says, still looking through his pair of binoculars towards the street. "I don't think we should risk it."

"Let's hope she left us a message," Niesha says.

They wait until daylight when there's some foot traffic through the park, then Niesha ducks out to look for whatever Eliza had dropped into the fountain, returning with a blank McDonald's name badge with a phone number scratched into it. After some deliberation, Zach calls the number using one of the numerous burner phones they'd brought.

The call gets cut off after only a single ring, but Eliza quickly texts him back.

_Not now, the whole place is bugged in case you come back. How about 10? Will go to a café for my break._

_10 will be fine_, Zach replies.

Andrew and Niesha are concerned that someone will still overhear the conversation if the Viktor is having Eliza followed, but she surprises them by calling from the café's single-stall toilet with the hand dryer running in the background.

"If the ASC still manages to listen in on us through all this, it'll be the first time they've impressed me," Eliza says when Zach picks up. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

Zach gives her the abridged version of the Technomancers' arrest and Viktor's coup in the making, and instead of writing off the story as a conspiracy theory or the ramblings of a paranoid vet, she sighs.

"I was afraid something like this was happening. They've called me up, you know. I've got another few days left to wrap things up in Ophir, then they're shipping me off to the front. A lot of other reservists I know have been put on the list too, but listen, Zach, there've been whispers going around that soldiers sent to the front aren't coming back, and that the war's already been lost even though the official word is that we're winning and everyone needs to continue doing their part to support the war effort. If you can find solid evidence that Colonel Watcher's been lying to the people, you might stand a chance at destabilising his support."

"I'm trying, but his spies are everywhere, and I don't want to tip him off too soon by asking the wrong person questions."

"Look, I'll try to keep this phone away from the ASC and send you what intel I can from the front. That's all I can think of that'll help."

"Be careful."

"I'm not the one who's a fugitive. Watch your back." With that, Eliza hangs up.

"Looks like we have our person on the inside," Niesha says.

-

The mood on the trip back to Noctis is light enough that Zach can almost pretend they're just friends on a road trip, not an unlikely band of spies and ex-army joining forces to prevent Abundance's intelligence agency from staging a coup. That they've got a car and are properly prepared this time goes a long way in making this journey much more enjoyable than the last.

Even the quiet intimacy of being the only people on the road is better with Niesha there to take a turn with the driving and to keep watch when they take a break. They might have been able to make the whole trip from Ophir to Noctis in a day if they'd driven non-stop, but they're not in any particular rush to report back since Dandolo hadn't set them a deadline, and it'll be a few days before Eliza's in position.

It ends up taking them three days to get to Ophir, driving along at a leisurely pace and crossing Mariner's Valley to the other entrance to Noctis so that they don't have to navigate through the canyons. When they reach the palace to report in, the Technomancers are already there, looking like they've just come back from the desert too.

"—naïve," Dandolo is saying. "Both countries are looking for their own excuses to return to war—Aurora for pride, and Abundance for revenge."

"Be that as it may, I've seen enough war in my lifetime to not want to be the cause of another," Connor says with an uncharacteristically steely determination. "I've made many decisions that I regret, but this is not one of them."

"What's going on?" Zach interjects as the rising tension become palpable.

"There is currently a ceasefire between Abundance and Aurora," Sean says, glancing at Dandolo. "The truce was called shortly after we were arrested by the ASC."

By the stunned looks on Andrew and Niesha's faces, they'd been just as in the dark about this as Zach had been.

"Where did you just come back from?" he asks.

"An attempt to reignite the war." Sean's openly frowning at Dandolo now.

"This truce does not behoove us," Dandolo says. "Not while Viktor is still in power. Without the war to keep him occupied, Noctis will come under close scrutiny. If we were to be discovered, it would be catastrophic."

"Catastrophic? What about the war?" Zach asks.

"My primary concern is for this city and its people. Need I remind you that we welcomed you with open arms when you had nowhere else to go? All of you?" Dandolo sweeps his gaze over everyone gathered before him, Andrew and Niesha included. "No matter, I have something else for you to do," he says to the Technomancers. "Ever heard of the Vory?"

A shiver runs down Zach's spine at the name, and next to him, he feels Niesha stiffen.

"A vicious mob originating from Ophir," Dandolo continues, "looking to use Noctis as a foothold to expand their influence."

"They're here?" Niesha asks.

"I want you to investigate," Dandolo continues as if he hadn't heard her. "You're new faces in the city, and no one will question you making a few curious inquiries about the people here. Lure out the Vory, then kick them out of Noctis. We don't want them here."

"Kick them out?" Niesha moves so that she's standing directly in front of Dandolo and he can no longer ignore her. "But they know where to find us!"

"The Vory have been coming and going for years, Niesha. I don't doubt for a minute that Anton knows exactly where Noctis is. I pretend I don't notice him sneaking spies into my city, and he turns a blind eye to those I sneak into his. But I won't tolerate these boorish louts of late that are spreading violence on the streets. It's time for them to go." Dandolo dismisses the Technomancers with a wave, and with a raised eyebrow and a tilt of his head, invites Zach, Andrew, and Niesha to sit at a nearby table.

Niesha seems troubled and Andrew distracted, so Zach takes it upon himself to tell Dandolo how the meeting with Eliza went.

"If she can get you photographs or videos to present to the Assembly, they will need little convincing to act," Dandolo says. "And if they do…well, nobody knows Ophir quite like the Vory do. I daresay Anton owes me a favour after the inconvenience he's caused me, perhaps in the form of some blackmail you can use against Viktor or the Assembly."

"What about the truce? Hardly anyone in Ophir has heard anything about it. Who's your source for that?"

"The Aurorans. Perhaps not the best witnesses to be presenting."

"But someone on the Abundance side had to agree to the ceasefire. Someone high up the chain of command, who's either working for or being blackmailed by the ASC."

"That I couldn't tell you. Perhaps your boss will have better luck on the inside. What of your mission, Niesha?"

"I managed to get a list of Assembly members unhappy with how much influence Viktor has outside of the ASC," Niesha says detachedly, looking at some point past Dandolo. "But they're being kept under close watch, so we'll have to approach them carefully."

"An easy enough task for someone as well-versed in handling informants as you are, no?" If Dandolo had meant for his words to cheer Niesha up, they're not working.

-

"What's your history with the Vory?" Zach asks Niesha as they leave the palace behind. "Were you from Ophir too?"

"I was. I lived on the streets with a bunch of other kids until the Vory set the ASC on us and had us sent to a re-education camp."

"You were in a re-education camp?"

"Yeah, until Dandolo's people broke in one day and freed us. Some went back to Ophir, but others came to Noctis instead. For us, it was a chance to start over."

"When did you—" Zach turns to his other side to look at Andrew, but he's not there.

He's still further up the staircase, half turned towards the palace like he's not sure where he wants to go.

"Andrew?"

"I forgot something. Why don't you two go ahead, and I'll catch up?" Without waiting for an answer, he starts back up the stairs.

-

Zach doesn't see Andrew again until several hours later, when he's almost fallen asleep on waiting for Andrew to come back to his room. Zach had stayed with Niesha for a while, assuring her that the Technomancers would take care of the Vory and that Noctis would be safe from the ASC, then she'd sent him away so they could both get some sleep.

"Where did you go?" Zach asks blearily, watching Andrew through half-open eyes from where he's sprawled across the bed.

"Sorry, I lost track of time." Andrew sheds his outer layers and prosthetic and settles into the bed behind Zach, wrapping his arm and a leg around Zach and resting his head on Zach's shoulder. "I went to see Connor," he says so quietly that at first, Zach thinks he's misheard.

"You went to see Connor?" he asks, just to be sure.

"I did."

"What for?"

"That mission he just went on…I wanted to ask him why he did what he did."

Ian hadn't been at the meeting, likely still recovering from his wounds, so Connor would have taken charge of the Technomancers during the mission, would have been the one who'd told them to go against the orders Dandolo had given.

"We got to talking for a while," Andrew continues, "and I'm not ready to forgive him or anyone else yet for what happened, but…we can move on. There're more important things to concentrate on right now."

Zach rolls over so he can face Andrew. "You're important. You know that, right?"

Andrew chuckles, and it's only half self-deprecatingly. "You always try to see the best in everyone, don't you?" He presses a soft kiss to Zach's lips. "It's alright, really. I've made as much peace with it as I can for now. As for the rest…time heals all wounds, right?"

"I hope so."


	6. 7AM in Ophir

The Chief of Justice—Simon something—has arranged to meet in an empty office at the boundary of the Slums and Exchange districts. It's at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac that slopes down to a stormwater drainage system, and is completely devoid of any other traffic.

"Terrible place to meet," Andrew says, leaning on the steering wheel and peering out the window at the building across the street with a FOR LEASE sign out front. "Only one approach, nothing to cover our movements, no clear sight line from the building to the street…"

"Should we arrange another meeting somewhere else?" Zach asks.

"No, there's no guarantee he'd be willing to meet with us again. He's the Chief of Justice—it's a wonder he even agreed to a face-to-face in the first place. Besides, the single approach does mean it'll be easier for one of us to keep watch on the road."

"You said you’d spoken to him over the phone?"

"Yeah, he already knew what Viktor was up to without me having to tell him. He just wants proof that he can present to the rest of the Assembly."

"You'd think they'd listen to the Chief of Justice when he tells them someone's breaking the law."

"Right? Bureaucrats, honestly. Come on, let's secure the building."

They get out of the car, and Zach keeps watch at the door while Andrew sweeps the rest of the building for listening devices and ASC agents lying in wait. Right on the hour, a sleek black car that looks like it costs more than Zach earns in a year pulls up outside, just barely visible through the shrubs and tree branches that obscure his view.

Zach keeps a hand on the grip of the pistol that's at his hip just in case, but only a single older man comes up the path, looking nervously over his shoulder.

"That him?" Zach asks.

Andrew looks over Zach’s shoulder as the man comes through the outer door. "That's him. I'll talk to him; you keep watch outside and make sure he wasn't followed."

Zach does as Andrew asks, going out as far as the edge of the garden outside where he can still hide behind the foliage. Nothing but dead silence.

He stays outside for a few more minutes just to be sure, and is about to head back in when he sees a car appear at the end of the street. It's approaching quickly, and Zach doesn't hang around longer to see who comes out of it. He runs back into the building, calling out a warning to Andrew.

Andrew has his gun out and pointed at Simon in an instant. "That's the ASC, isn’t it?"

Simon is standing perfectly still. "I'm sorry. They have my son."

Andrew exhales forcefully and lowers his gun. "Of course they do. Come on, Zach."

Andrew takes hold of Zach's hand, pulling him further into the building. Behind them, Zach can hear ASC agents coming in through the front door, the same heavy tread he'd first heard in a McDonald's lobby.

They're almost at a door that looks like it leads outside when it opens with a bang right in front of them, revealing a squad of ASC agents on the other side. Andrew's already in motion, trying to pull Zach down a different corridor, but Zach can't move, can only stare at the agent who's leading the charge.

"Jeff?"

"I'm going to need you to show me your hands," Jeff says, helpfully motioning upwards with the rifle he's holding.

Other agents are rushing in, from the back as well as the front, and Zach feels hands pulling his wrists behind his back and securing them with a zip tie. Someone else pats down his pockets and takes everything he's got in them, then he's being turned around and marched out the front door.

Jeff's already outside talking to Simon, who at least looks ashamed, but he doesn't spare Zach or Andrew a single glance as he leaves. The ASC agents push Zach and Andrew down to their knees at the end of the road and circle them, guns at the ready.

It feels like an execution.

"Zach!" Jeff says, joining the circle. "So good to see you again. How've you been?" His customary cheerfulness has taken on a mocking tone, matched by the sardonic smirk on his face.

"Maintenance work just not cutting it as a career for you anymore?" Zach asks.

"It was only ever meant to be temporary."

As the words sink in, Andrew quietly curses, and Zach remembers what he'd said many weeks ago about having looked up all of Zach's coworkers after their first run-in. Evidently, not thoroughly enough.

"Why were you even there in the first place?" What does the ASC gain by having a spy working the night shift at a McDonald's that doesn't even see that many customers? Unless… "Were you…spying on me?"

Jeff clicks his tongue. "Not exactly the sharpest tack in the box, are you? I can't believe Viktor wanted me to recruit you. Not that you made it easy."

Zach thinks back to Jeff's many attempts to start conversations and organise meeting up outside of work. Zach had accepted a few invitations for coffee after their shift and even one trip to a bowling alley with Dave as well as a 'team bonding activity', but something about Jeff had always irked him.

"You came on too strong."

"I was trying to be your friend, but you weren't having any of it. Too bad. We could have avoided this."

Jeff raises his rifle, and Zach sneaks a glance at Andrew, willing him to have come up with some daring escape plan while he and Jeff had been talking. Andrew, as if feeling his gaze, looks back, but there's only resignation and apology in his eyes.

Zach tries to convey back a combination of 'what can you do' and 'it was fun while it lasted', then stares down the barrel of the rifle, determined to meet death with his eyes open. Just as Jeff goes to disengage the safety, a series of explosions go off behind him, and the zip tie around Zach's wrists falls off.

Or more accurately, someone cuts it off, and that someone is Dave, moving on to Andrew with a pair of wire cutters in his hand.

"Dave?" Zach shouts over the noise. Seeing so many of his old coworkers in quick succession has him half-expecting Eliza to pop out of nowhere at any minute. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know!" Dave screams back. "Run!"

The ASC open fire as Zach, Andrew, and Dave leap over the low fence behind them and slide down the hill to the hole in the chain-link fence at the bottom. On the other side of the fence is a battered grey car that Zach recognises as Dave's.

"This your car?" Andrew asks as Dave fishes the keys out of his pocket.

"Yeah."

"I'm driving." Andrew snatches the keys out of Dave's hand.

"Hey!" Dave protests, but Andrew's already opening the door.

"Come on," Zach says. "There's no arguing with him when he gets like this."

Dave continues to stand there for another second, which is how Zach ends up in the passenger seat while Dave gets relegated to the back. He's barely closed the door when Andrew goes careening down the street.

"Where are we going?" Dave leans forward into Zach's field of view.

"Sit down and put on your seatbelt unless you've always wondered what it feels like to fly through the front windshield," Andrew says.

He makes a sharp turn, and Dave falls back onto the seat. There's a mumbled curse and a click as he puts on his seatbelt.

Andrew drives them at breakneck speed to the train station, where he slows the car and parks it in the adjacent multi-storey carpark.

"You got a phone?" he asks Dave.

"Yeah," Dave says slowly.

"Give it to Zach."

"First my car and now my phone. What do you want next, my shoes?" Dave grumbles as he reluctantly turns his phone over to Zach.

"Hide it somewhere in the station," Andrew tells Zach. "We'll get another car and meet you on the other side. If you approach the exit from the right and go behind the pillar, the camera there won't catch you leaving. Stay away from the gates."

"What, you don’t trust me to be alone?" Dave asks as Zach gets out of the car.

"Nope," Andrew cheerfully informs him. "Get out."

Zach stashes Dave's phone on the top of the electronic information board where it can't be seen unless someone's actively looking for it, and slips out the other side of the station. A black sedan is idling at the end of the drop off zone, and Andrew is using the payphone next to it.

"We'll be there soon." He hangs up as Zach approaches.

"Niesha?" Zach guesses.

Andrew nods. "She and the others are at the safehouse. We'll head there once I'm sure we're not being followed."

They drive through the streets of Ophir, going in circles and making sudden turns while checking the mirrors and looking out the windows for cars that show up more than once and pedestrians that take too much interest. Mostly, they see no one since Ophir has little nightlife to speak of.

Once Andrew is satisfied they've lost any pursuit for good, he drives them to the Underworks district where the streets are actually somewhat lively thanks to the night shift workers at the factories and warehouses that make up the area. Andrew parks the car at the back of an unremarkable warehouse, and enters a code into the keypad by the door to open it.

Zach does a quick head count when he enters, and is relieved to find everyone—the Technomancers and a dozen of Dandolo's people—already there, using stacks of pallets for tables and chairs, with empty wrappers for biscuits and candy bars scattered everywhere.

"Who's your plus one?" Niesha asks.

"This is David," Andrew says. "He and Zach used to work together. We would have ended up quite dead without his help, so let's get him whatever he wants."

"I want my phone and car back," Dave says.

"Anything but that."

"How about a beer?"

"We have water." Niesha raises the bottle in front of her.

"Cold?"

"Room temperature."

"I'm starting to regret this."

-

The warehouse isn't bad as safehouses go—there's plenty of space so they're not all crammed in together, running water and electricity even if they have to keep their usage low so as to not attract attention, and enough packaged food on the shelves to last them several weeks.

While Andrew tells everyone else about his and Zach's meeting with the Chief of Justice, Zach corners Dave in one of the aisles next to the open floor space that the others are gathered in.

"Why'd you do it?" Zach asks. "You don't even like me."

"Yeah, well," Dave shrugs and averts his eyes, "I was the one who reported you to the ASC in the first place. I wasn't even much of an ASC supporter, but they kept calling and showing up at my place asking questions about you, and I just thought that if you were up to something, I didn't want anything to do with it. So, I told them everything I knew about you: when you worked, where you lived; that's it, really, I don't actually know much about you."

"It wasn't your fault. Viktor could easily have found that out from anyone else."

"Still. It didn't sit right with me. Things aren't right in Ophir, Zach. In Abundance, even, and I'm sick of sitting around just _letting_ shit happen to me."

"Then you've come to the right people."

They rejoin the others just in time to catch the end of Andrew's story about escaping from the ASC. From the looks on everyone else's faces, their meetings had gone similarly poorly.

"What a shitshow," Amelia says. "Everyone's either a coward, a spy, or both. What's Plan B?"

"We find what leverage Viktor has on these people, and we take it away." Niesha looks at Andrew. "You said he was holding the Chief of Justice's son hostage?"

"Forget the people at the top," Dave cuts in. "Who you need to convince are the people at the bottom of the heap, the ones who do all the work and get none of the credit. If you can show them there's something worth fighting for, not even the most corrupt government can stand up to the combined strength of the common people."

"What are you suggesting?"

"The Abundance News Network. Broadcast those videos you have straight from their headquarters, and no one, not even the ASC, can stop you."

"It was hard enough for us to get into the Exchange with all the checkpoints that have been set up. How do you propose we get into the Source, let alone the broadcast station?"

"A distraction," Andrew murmurs. He gives Connor a humourless smile. "I'm about to take a page right out of your book."

"We'll do it," Connor says. "Whatever it takes. Colonel Watcher must be stopped."

-

They make their move early the next morning, just as dawn begins to break. Amelia's got the rover and the Technomancers, and Dave's joined the Noctians after recognising Boris among them as an old friend from school, leaving Zach, Andrew, and Niesha to infiltrate the ANN headquarters.

It's easy to find, being the tallest building in the Source with its logo emblazoned on the side, but they won't be approaching it through the usual means—Niesha's contact gets them into the old metro tunnels that run under the building, and Andrew's contact gets them a code for the elevator to bypass most of the floors. The others are targeting the checkpoints along the main roads, hopefully drawing enough attention that there won't be many eyes on Zach, Andrew, and Niesha as they try to reach the master control room.

It's smooth sailing until it's not, and they're barricading a door in one of the building's sub-levels when it occurs to Zach that they'd probably tripped a silent alarm somewhere. Knowing the extent of Viktor's reach and paranoia, they should have planned for this, but the realisation doesn't help them now.

"Where are we going?" Zach asks as they turn corner after corner, leaving a trail of obstacles behind them to slow down pursuit.

"We just need to find an elevator that can take us to the upper floors," Andrew says.

"It won't be enough." Niesha's been trying the handle of every door in the hallway, and she finally finds one to a storage room that's unlocked. They pile in and lock the door from the inside, holding their breaths as the security guards run by outside. "If they haven't already locked down the elevators, security on the upper floor will be ready for us," Niesha whispers.

"We're going to need another distraction, this time closer to home." The storage room lights up as Andrew pulls out his phone. "The Technomancers will be able to get here the quickest."

They listen over the phone as Ian calls everyone back to the rover, then whatever he begins to say is drowned out by the roar of the rover's engine as Amelia slams the pedal to the floor.

"ETA two minutes!" she yells loudly enough for the phone's speaker to pick her up even over the sounds of gunfire, sirens, and screeching tires.

After about a minute and forty-five seconds, there are warning yells from several people inside the rover, then a distant crashing sound like they've just driven through a glass window.

"We're here!" Amelia announces. "Everybody out."

"Try to secure the upper floors," Andrew says before Ian hangs up. "I'll send you the code for the elevator."

By the time Zach, Andrew, and Niesha find a service elevator, steal a keycard off a guard to activate it, and make their way up to the twentieth floor, the fighting has already spilled out of the elevator lobby on the other side of the floor into the corridors and rooms where the studio's workers cower under desks and behind cupboards.

"We need to keep moving," Andrew says. "Stairs are that way."

"Stop right there," says a level baritone that Zach's heard before. "Zach the night shift manager, was it?" Viktor's using an absolutely fuming Amelia as a human shield, a hand around her throat and a gun to her head.

"Viktor."

"The rest of your Technomancer friends are being rounded up as we speak. This will go much better for you if you lay down your weapons now and surrender. There's nowhere left to go."

There are muffled thumps from the adjacent room as the Technomancers and the ASC vie for the upper hand, then there's a hollow thunk as a canister comes through the doorway and lands behind Viktor. The room immediately begins to fill with smoke.

"Go!" Amelia yells, struggling in Viktor's hold.

There are sounds of a scuffle, then a gunshot and the thump of a body falling to the floor, but the smoke in the room is thick enough now that Zach can't see anything. Andrew's hand closes around his wrist, and pulls him through the door marked AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY. Andrew and Niesha push a filing cabinet in front of the door while Zach strains his ears for a sign that will tell him who's winning.

"Come on, Zach," Niesha says. "They have their job, and we have ours. We can't let them down."

There are more gunshots from behind the barred door, but Andrew and Niesha are ushering Zach further down the hall, towards a stairwell behind a glass door that Andrew simply smashes through with his left hand and unlocks from the inside.

A few security guards try to detain them on the stairs, but Andrew and Niesha dispatch them with frightening speed and accuracy while they're busy shouting warnings. Zach feels bad for them, but there's no time to stop and check if they're alright.

It's four flights of stairs to the topmost floor, then through hallways and security doors following a rough map one of Andrew's technician contacts had drawn after being called up to fix a monitor in the master control room. There aren't many people in their way now, the few workers who see them coming quickly retreating back into the rooms they'd come out of.

By the time Zach, Andrew, and Niesha reach the master control room—helpfully labelled by the plaque on the door—the operators have locked themselves inside and pushed something in front of the door. Niesha picks the lock while Andrew readies explosives, but before they go that far, Zach gets a chance to talk it out first.

"My name is Zach," he says, raising his voice to be heard through the door, "and I used to be a Technomancer.

"The war is over. We've lost Greenhope and called for a ceasefire, and Aurora has responded with offers of peace. But no word of this has yet made it back to Ophir, and more soldiers are being called to the front every day, all on the order of Colonel Viktor Watcher of the ASC, a man who's sworn to protect the interests of Abundance, but instead has been lying to the people and misusing national resources for personal gain.

"I don't expect you just to believe what I say, so I've brought evidence to back up these claims: photographs, reports, interviews with soldiers who've been to the front and seen the truth for themselves, statements from the Technomancers who were trying to uncover Viktor's treachery before they were arrested by the ASC. I'm going to slide some papers under the door, and all I ask is that you read them."

It goes against everything he'd ever been taught to speak of his old squad to civilians, but Ian, Connor, and Sean had given him leave to use their names to lend weight to the accusations being levied against Viktor and the ASC. The Technomancers had once been household names, as tales of their daring exploits against Aurora would be broadcast back home to stir up hope and support for the war. Everything they've ever done has been to protect Abundance, and Zach hopes that whoever's inside the room now remembers this.

There's silence from the other side of the door for a few long minutes, then there's the sound of something heavy being moved across the floor, and the door opens a crack.

"No weapons," says someone Zach can't see.

He slowly removes his pistol from its holster and lays it on the floor, then unbuckles the knife strapped to his calf. "My friends are going to stay out here to keep watch, will that be alright?"

"Fine. Come in." The door opens a little wider.

There are just two operators in the dimly-lit control room, watching over dozens of monitors that flash with images of current events, advertisements, and Saturday morning children's cartoons that Zach remembers watching without sound through storefront windows.

"Hands in the air, traitor." An ASC agent steps out of the shadows, rifle trained on Zach, and for the second time this week, he feels the crushing weight of mortality descend on him.

And for the second time this week, someone unexpected comes to the rescue, this time in the form of the second operator, who's sitting in a chair in front of the monitors. Zach raises his hands, the ASC agent takes a step forward, and the operator is out of his seat in an instant, swinging something at the back of the agent's head. They go down instantly in a crumpled heap.

The operator who'd let Zach in steps around him to kick the agent's rifle away and turn off his radio.

"There, now we can speak freely," she says. "I am Bulgakov, leader of the Resistance."

Everyone's heard of the Resistance, the ASC's favourite scapegoat whenever raids and mass arrests unsettle the people enough that they might start thinking of speaking up.

"I thought you'd all been killed or arrested by the ASC." Even at the front, Zach had seen the interview two years ago where Viktor had smugly announced that the opposition had been quashed, and Abundance was now 'safe from individuals with dangerous ideals thanks to the tireless work of the ASC'.

"Not all of us. Those who survived learned to be quiet about it: we stopped the rallies, the fliers, the underground gatherings. But we kept the dream alive, because the people know Abundance is rotten to the core, but they're helpless to do anything about it."

"What are you doing here?"

"Keeping an eye on the news," Bulgakov says with an amused quirk of her lips. "We've been watching the ASC for years, waiting for the day we have enough proof to present to the people and spur them into fighting for their freedom. And here you are now, Zach the former Technomancer. What can the Resistance do for you?"

"I need to broadcast a video." Zach produces the datastick he's carrying in his inside jacket pocket. "Several, in fact, along with photographs and reports. Together, enough evidence for a court to find Viktor guilty of treason."

"If he gets that far."

While Bulgakov looks over the videos and the other operator prepares the emergency broadcast system, Zach hears gunshots from outside.

"The ASC?" he asks.

"Most likely." Bulgakov grabs his arm as he makes for the door.

"I have to help my friends." They can't have come this far just to lose now; Zach won't allow it.

"No. I'll hold the line myself if I need to, but we only have one chance to do this right, and you need to make the opening address."

"What opening address?"

"Tell Abundance what you told us." Bulgakov plugs in a handheld video recorder and points it at Zach. "Look directly into the camera. We'll be live in ten."

Every monitor on the wall of the control room switches to an image of the ANN logo and the message:

EMERGENCY BROADCAST  
THIS IS NOT A TEST

On a smaller standalone screen, a timer counts down from ten. Zach takes deep breaths to steady the hammering in his chest, concentrates on the words he wants to say instead of thinking about what's happening outside, and lets a calm determination settle in the core of his being. They only have one shot at this.

"Citizens of Abundance," he begins, and hears over the gunfire the echo of his own voice through the speakers in the building. "My name is Zach, and I used to be a Technomancer."

-

By the time Zach finishes his speech, the shooting outside has stopped. As the first of the videos starts to play, someone knocks on the door.

"The ASC doesn't knock," Bulgakov says at Zach's questioning look.

He throws open the door and is met by Andrew, who has a bruise forming on his left cheek and a graze on his right arm that's bleeding slightly, but he's alright, as is Niesha, who's searching the bodies of the ASC agents scattered down the hall alongside broken furniture and office equipment used as improvised weapons.

"Hey." Relief floods through Zach.

"Hey back." Andrew flashes him a triumphant grin. "We did it."

"We did." Zach pulls Andrew close and kisses him soundly, and Andrew kisses back with the fervour of someone with a great weight lifted off their shoulders. "How about the others?" Zach asks when they pull apart, still holding on to each other.

"No word yet."

Which means one of two things: they're still busy fighting, or they weren't able to stand their ground, and the upper floors will soon be swarming with ASC. Whichever it is, Zach's going to need a weapon. He grabs the nearest rifle on the floor.

"Our friends—" he tells Bulgakov "—we left them fighting downstairs."

"Go," she says. "My people are on their way. We'll make sure everyone in Abundance hears your message."

Save for the video playing over the speakers and on every radio and television in the building, the floors are eerily quiet as Zach, Andrew, and Niesha make their way back down. The workers they can see are watching the video with rapt attention, and by the time they're almost back to where they'd left the Technomancers, the video's looped around to Zach's speech again.

Niesha leads the way around the filing cabinet blockade they'd made earlier that hasn’t been breached, to a door that opens up on the other side of the room.

There's not as much shooting going on now, but the fighting is still going strong if the shouting from elsewhere on the floor is any indication. Zach scans the fallen bodies that are visible, but can't recognise anyone he knows amongst them.

"I'm fine!" he hears Amelia shout from somewhere to the right where Scott's treating the wounded in the next room. There are bandages wrapped around her head, a dark red patch blossoming on the right side where Viktor's gun had been pointed.

"You don't look fine," Zach says.

"Zach, hey!" Amelia tries to get to her feet, only to be pushed back down by Scott. "It's the hero of the fucking hour, everyone!"

"Where's Viktor?" Zach quickly asks as everyone turns their attention on him.

"He ran off like a coward once the video started playing. The others went after him."

"Where else can he go?" Andrew asks. "There's nowhere left to run."

"He said the same thing to us," Zach points out.

"Right. We should probably make sure he doesn't escape after all the effort it took us to get here."

The studio workers have also gotten involved in the chase, and after they get over the initial shock of realising Zach's the guy in the emergency broadcast, they tell him that Viktor's in one of the elevators, having used an override code to go straight to the ground floor without stopping in between.

"How are we going to catch him?" Zach says helplessly. Determination is all well and good, but it's nothing in the face of the simple fact that they're not going to be able to catch up.

"The others should have reached the building by now." Niesha's got her phone out and is calling someone while she presses the call button for the elevators with her free hand. "They just need to delay him long enough for the police to arrive."

"Will they be enough?"

"They're all we've got."

Niesha calls Boris, whose group is busy securing the ASC agents who'd surrendered after seeing the video on one of the many billboards in the Source, and rounding up the others who'd fled instead. She instructs Boris to leave them be for now, and focus on getting to the ANN headquarters as quickly as possible to catch the man who'd masterminded the whole operation.

Andrew gets in touch with the Technomancers, who've also followed Viktor in one of the other elevators, but aren't hopeful about reaching the lobby in time to stop him. By their count, he's also got half a dozen ASC agents with him, and they've already proved themselves willing to shoot civilians to get out.

Zach calls emergency services, and the dispatcher recognises his voice and promises to send all units to his location, though she admits there's been some infighting after large numbers of officers had revealed themselves to be ASC.

That's all they've got. It has to be enough.

Neither Viktor nor the Technomancers are in the lobby when Zach, Andrew, and Niesha emerge from the lift, but the civilians peeking over the top of the front desk point them towards the front entrance, which has a large, rover-shaped hole on one side, through which comes the sound of gunshots and screeching tires, followed by a loud bang.

There's chaos on the streets outside the headquarters, with Viktor and the ASC emerging from one car as the Technomancers help what looks like the Noctians out of the car that had stopped the ASC in their tracks, and more cars, some of them police, join the fray.

"Stand down, Colonel Watcher," an officer says through a loudspeaker. "You are under arrest for committing no fewer than three counts of treason against Abundance and its people."

"Treason?" Viktor demands, his booming voice easily reaching even the furthest of his gathered audience. "Everything I've done has been to secure the future of our country. All you people needed to do was fall in line, do as you were told, and I would have ushered in a new world order, one that would have brought us strength and prosperity. A bigger, brighter future. But you," he turns to look up the few steps that separate him and Zach, "you couldn't leave well enough alone."

Viktor raises the gun he's holding and the shouts from the crowd muddle together as various people order him to lower his weapon or be shot, but it doesn't deter him from pulling the trigger.

Zach, Andrew, and Niesha instinctively duck, and the bullets fly over their heads and make contact with the intact side of the glass wall of the entrance, which shatters into a storm of broken pieces that rain down on top of them. Zach hears a volley of gunshots go off, then everything goes still and quiet.

As he straightens up, pieces of glass tumble off him to the ground, and he senses more than sees Andrew and Niesha also on the move, but he only has eyes for the figure lying at the bottom of the steps, motionless in a growing pool of blood.

"So ends the reign of Colonel Viktor Watcher," Andrew murmurs, coming to a stop next to Zach.

Niesha continues down the steps and approaches the body, prodding it with her foot. Around her, police officers are arresting the ASC agents who haven't fallen alongside their leader, and paramedics are seeing to the wounded. Viktor is far beyond their help, his eyes wide and unseeing as they stare up at the clear blue of the morning sky.

Zach sighs and rolls his shoulders, shakes out the pieces of glass that have fallen down his shirt. On the screens around them and over the speakers, his speech begins to play yet again. That's going to get tiresome soon.

"Now what?" Andrew asks. His fingers brush against Zach's, and Zach reaches out to take his hand.

Zach thinks of his apartment, probably still in the same trashed state the ASC had left it in, and wonders if it'll look any better by day with some company. "I'm going home. You coming?"

"I'd love to."


End file.
